Politics ruins the character.

Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent scurrilous wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country - and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians.

The whole thing about making films in an organic film on location is that it's not all about characters relationships and themes it's also about place and the poetry of place. It's about the spirit of what you find the accidents of what you stumble across.

And my father was a comic. He could play any musical instrument. He loved to perform. He was a wonderfully comedic character. He had the ability to dance and sing and charm and analyze poetry.

One of my biggest pet peeves is that I just don't like it when characters do things that are funny to the writer but you don't know why they're doing it and it doesn't make any sense.

The point of departure of the process to which we wish to contribute is the fact that war is the natural reaction of human nature in the savage state while peace is the result of acquired characteristics.

Peace is not the absence of war but a virtue based on strength of character.

Character... is a habit the daily choice of right over wrong it is a moral quality which grows to maturity in peace and is not suddenly developed on the outbreak of war.

Reading a novel in which all characters illustrate patience hard work chastity and delayed gratification could be a pretty dull experience.

No one knows his true character until he has run out of gas purchased something on the installment plan and raised an adolescent.

Plot rules nor even poetry are not half so great beauties in tragedy or comedy as a just imitation of nature of character of the passions and their operations in diversified situations.

I think that the best way to explain that is that my mother gave me all the color and character and flare and liveliness and my father gave me all the sanity and nature and all the things that helped me be a more rounded human being.

None of us is responsible for the complexion of his skin. This fact of nature offers no clue to the character or quality of the person underneath.

Humans have certain properties and characteristics which are intrinsic to them just as every other organism does. That's human nature.

We are a people that have always celebrated other people's success so long as we always had the opportunity to meet that success ourselves. That is the American nature. That is the American character. That is one of the things that makes us different from the rest of the world. And I'm afraid we could lose that or are on the verge of losing that.

No author ever drew a character consistent to human nature but he was forced to ascribe to it many inconsistencies.

Our character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances by which nature forms our habits by which we are nurtured and live.

All cartoon characters and fables must be exaggeration caricatures. It is the very nature of fantasy and fable.

A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body it gives boldness enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.

And whether you're drawn to gospel music or church music or honky-tonk music it informs your character and it informs your talent.

In these confused times the role of classical music is at the very core of the struggle to reassert cultural and ethical values that have always characterized our country and for which we have traditionally been honored and respected outside our shores.

What I took back because of my exposure to the Jewish music of the 30s and the 40s in my upbringing with my father was that kind of theatrical songwriting. It was always a part of my character. This desire to make people laugh.

It is so characteristic that just when the mechanics of reproduction are so vastly improved there are fewer and fewer people who know how the music should be played.

I like to comprehend more or less everything around me - apart from the creation of my music. It's an obsessive character trait that's getting worse. I don't switch the light on and off 15 times before I leave the room yet but something's going wrong.