The only thing I know that makes me feel comfortable is to know as much as I can. Not like what the shots are going to be, but knowing enough about my character that I can forget those things. And more specifically, my lines. I have to know my lines. I have to know something really well, so I can forget it when we're doing it. And there is comfort in knowing, "Okay, there's not another stone that I could have overturned."
What the expression is intended to mean, I think, is that there is a better and a worse element in the character of each individual, and that when the naturally better element controls the worse then the man is said to be "master of himself", as a term of praise. But when - as a result of bad upbringing or bad company one s better element is overpowered by the numerical superiority of one s worse impulses, then one is criticized for not being master of oneself and for lack of self control.
Sir," returned Mrs. Sparsit, " I cannot say that i have heard him precisely snore, and therefore must not make that statement. But on winter evenings, when he has fallen asleep at his table, I have heard him, what I should prefer to describe as partially choke. I have heard him on such occasions produce sounds of a nature similar to what may be heard in dutch clocks. Not," said Mrs. Sparsit, with a lofty sense of giving strict evidence, " That I would convey any imputation on his moral character. Far from it.
The German people in its whole character is not warlike, but rather soldierly, that is, while they do not want war, they are not frightened by the thoughts of it.
A man's power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth, and his desire to communicate it without loss.
As a creator of character his peculiarity is that he creates wherever his eyes rest ... With such a power at his command Dickens made his books blaze up, not by tightening the plot or sharpening the wit, but by throwing another handful of people upon the fire.
I get the impression from some people that unless they get direct access to characters' thoughts and realizations, either through thought balloons or narrations or some sort of showy action, then those thoughts and realizations never existed.
There's a victory and defeat-the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats-which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.
The myriad-minded man, our, and all men's, Shakespeare, has in this piece presented us with a legitimate farce in exactest consonance with the philosophical principles and character of farce, as distinguished from comedy and from entertainments. A proper farce is mainly distinguished from comedy by the licence allowed, and even required, in the fable, in order to produce strange and laughable situations. The story need not be probable, it is enough that it is possible.
Romeo is the most misunderstood character in literature, I think. He's hardcore to play because he's displaying the characteristics of Hamlet at the beginning, and, well, then everything else happens.
You cannot have a good character today and at the same time have a small mind and a little heart. You cannot have a good character today and be merely a petty reformer.
All the housemaid hopes is, happiness for 'em - but marriage is a lottery, and the more she thinks about it, the more she feels the independence and the safety of a single life.
Every state of welfare, every feeling of satisfaction, is negative in its character; that is to say, it consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of existence.