Quotes About Character

Most people, in my opinion, steal much of what they are. If they didn't what poor items they would be.

Our attitudes and opinions change, we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that's something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that character peaks a little later [...]. And after that, we're just stuck with what we've got. We're on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn't it?

It was perfectly possible to be an artist, yet also to be robust and responsible.

Honour is not just a matter of internal good feeling, but also of external behaviour.

And remember, whenever you see a character in a novel, let alone a biography or history book, reduced and neatened into three adjectives, always distrust that description.

When I tell people that she was the most grown-up person I have known, I suppose what I mean is that there were principles very close behind, if not actually embedded in, all her actions and thoughts.

Integrity is like virginity: once lost, never recoverable

Real literature was about psychological, emotional and social truth as demonstrated by the actions and reflections of its protagonists; the novel was about character developed over time.

He found himself reflecting on questions of honesty. Personal honesty, artistic honesty. How they were connected, if indeed they were. And how much of this virtue anyone had, and how long that store would last. He had told friends that if ever he repudiated Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, they were to conclude that he had run out of honesty

One test might be whether, as the years pass, you come out better from your own story, or worse. To come out worse might indicate that you are being more truthful. On the other hand, there is the danger of being retrospectively anti-heroic: making yourself out to have behaved worse than you actually did can be a form of self-praise.

Margaret used to say that there were two kinds of women: those with clear edges to them, and those who implied mystery.

c'est moi» es una alusión a la respuesta que dio Cervantes cuando en su lecho de muerte le preguntaron por el origen de su famoso personaje. Cf. Travestismo.

I didn't doubt for a moment that she had read them all, or that they were the right books to own. Further, they seemed to be an organic combination of her mind and personality, whereas mine struck me as functionally separate, straining to describe a character I hoped to grow into.

He did not want to make himself into a dramatic character. But sometimes, as his mind skittered in the small hours, he thought: so this is what history has come to. All that striving and idealism and hope and progress and science and art and conscience, and it all ends like this, with a man standing by a lift, at his feet a small case containing cigarettes, underwear and tooth powder; standing there and waiting to be taken away.

Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does: otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change, we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that's something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that character peaks a little later: between twenty and thirty, say. And after that, we're just stuck with what we've got.

Gentlemen, Admiral Lord Nelson wrote, of the officers aft on the quarterdeck and the seamen of the fo'c'sle: 'Aft the most honour—forward the better man!'" The

Maybe we're born with a full set of qualities, some fine, some not so fine, and none of us knows what will bring out everything that lives within us. And sometimes it's the fine qualities that cause us trouble, and the not so fine that save us.

Charm is an essence, not a façade.

Good God. She was Wellington with eyelashes.

No, Kinkade," Chase said thoughtfully. "I don't think a woman can destroy you. You can't be destroyed because…there's nothing to destroy. I warrant that you just reflect whatever's near you. Like a puddle of mud. You reflect honor if you're near it. You reflect decay if you're near it. Left to your own devices, you've no moral center at all, no concern except for your own pleasure. This is the result.

I should not, if I were you, wish to be, because 'sterner stuff' is usually forged by hardship.

Yes, Miss Masters, but walking is also a way to announce who you are. Gideon waved one arm impassionedly. How you view yourself in the world. The way you hold yourself, the way you move, how you occupy a space, tells other people a good deal about you, ~from To Love a Thief

In his presence, unanticipated corners of her character seemed to be unfolding like a secret letter written long ago.

physical beauty should have no importance in a lasting relationship.