Quotes About Character

To the devil with your pearldrops and your parroty manners. A filled mind and an apt wit will earn you all the respect any man has the means to deserve.

Humility is a virtue Scotsmen require to be taught.

Then Richard said, 'That was crude, for you.' 'But as you will find,' said Lymond softly, addressing the sand, 'I am a very crude man.

To make a deliberate falsification for personal gain is the last, worst depth to which either scholar or artist can descend in work or life. ( Letter to Muriel St. Clare Byrne , 8 September 1935)

All the children seem to be coming out quite intelligent, thank goodness. It would have been such a bore to be the mother of morons, and it's an absolute toss-up, isn't it? If one could only invent them, like characters in books, it would be much more satisfactory to a well-regulated mind.

Like all male creatures Wimsey was a simple soul at bottom.

Why doesn't God smite this dictator dead?' is a question a little remote from us, says one of the characters in The Man Born to Be King. Why, madam, did he not strike you dumb and imbecile before you uttered that baseless and unkind slander the day before yesterday? Or me, before I behaved with such cruel lack of consideration to that well-meaning friend? And why, sir, did he not cause your hand to rot off at the wrist before you signed your name to that dirty little bit of financial trickery?

Five minutes' practice before the glass every day, and you will soon acquire that vacant look so desirable for all rogues, detectives and Government officials.

She is a very conscientious person," said Miss Lydgate, "but she has rather an unfortunate knack of making any subject sound dull. It's a great pity, because she is exceptionally sound and dependable. However, that doesn't greatly matter in her present appointment; she holds a librarianship somewhere—Miss

I think,' said Bredon, who was accustomed to his father's meaningless outbursts of speech, 'she's silly.' 'So do I; but don't say I said so.' 'And rude.' 'And rude. I, on the other hand, am silly, but seldom rude. Your mother is neither rude nor silly.' 'Which am I?' 'You are an egotistical extravert of the most irrepressible type.

It was at this point that Lord Peter was apotheosed from the state of Quite Decent Uncle to that of Glorified Uncle.

You mean,' went on Wimsey, 'that they think in clichés.' 'Eh?' 'Formulae. "There's nothing like a mother's instinct" "Dogs and children always know." "Kind hearts are more than coronets. "Suffering refines the character"—that sort of guff, despite all evidence to the contrary.

of my own honesty.

Sherlock is my name and Holmes is my nature.

He was clearly a man of many qualities, even if they were mostly bad ones.

Vell, Zaphod's just zis guy, you know?

Ford had his own code of ethics. It wasn't much of one, but it was his and he stuck by it, more or less. One rule he made was never to buy his own drinks. He

He was not conspicuously tall, his features were striking but not conspicuously handsome.

To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.

The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79.

Any time you see a film or TV show or a commercial that features someone dressed up as an animal, it's probably Todd inside. "I was in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," he told me. "Guess," he added, "which one I was.

The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79. In

Arthur Dent, you are not merely a cruel and heartless man, you are also staggeringly tactless.

I'm just this guy, y'know