You cannot build a cultural identity without the images and sounds of your culture. Most countries in the third world - poor countries - they've lost their memories. Because everyday, films and cultural artifacts disappear. Film is also a memory - of the character and imagination of a culture.

Even if national peculiarities in character and in laws occasion differences in the curve which the woman movement describes in the different countries, yet everywhere the movement has had the same causes, must follow the same main direction, and - sooner or later - must have the same effects.

If you'd asked me then if I saw how big "The Steve Harvey Morning Show" was going to be, I couldn't tell you. But I knew I could reach people not as a character but as Steve Harvey, because although I tell jokes for a living, I've also lived, and I think I can relate to you more than you know.

My process is messy and non-linear, full of false starts, fidgets, and errands that I suddenly need to run now; it is a battle to get something - anything - down on paper. I doodle in sketchbooks: bits of ideas, fragments of sentences, character names, single lines of dialogue with no context.

The right to freedom of expression is justified first of all as the right of an individual purely in his capacity as an individual. It derives from the widely accepted premise of Western thought that the proper end of man is the realization of his character and potentialities as a human being.

In the beginning, I would find a character I understood. That was my focus. Not now - but you basically get offered the exact same thing you just did. Which I find hilarious. I did 'The Vow,' and then I had every love story you can imagine thrown at me. And now I'm getting offers for comedies.

It is a revolution; a revolution of the most intense character; in which belief in the justice, prudence, and wisdom of secession is blended with the keenest sense of wrong and outrage, and it can no more be checked by human effort for the time than a prairie fire by a gardener's watering pot.

One of the many reasons for the bewildering and tragic character of human existence is the fact that social organization is at once necessary and fatal. Men are forever creating such organizations for their own convenience and forever finding themselves the victims of their home-made monsters.

Even my novels offer passages in which the major character is imagined as a writer. In Joss and Gold, Li An is a business writer who edits her company's weekly public relations magazine. And in Sister Swing, Suyin writes human interest stories for a free, local community paper, The Asian Time.

I have to put my father over because he really taught me a lot, especially when it comes to out-of-the-ring psychology and how to react when you're approached by fans after a show or in the airport. It might sound silly, but a lot of those things come into play when you're playing a character.

In making Achilles and Patroclus lovers, I wasn't trying to speak for all gay men, just as when I write straight characters, I don't claim to speak for all straight people. My job as an author is to give voice to these very particular characters - these two men, in this time, and in this place

There's actually a big difference between story and character. A great story doesn't make a great movie. A great script, which defines its moments and characters can become a great movie. You can make a movie that makes a lot of money and it may or may not have great story or great characters.

I love my job, simply because we can keep things fresh, all the time. That's a luxury not all shows have. For us, as actors, it keeps us interested in our jobs and it keeps us coming back to work, every day. A new setting is amazing 'cause it's new for the team and it's new for our characters.

My grandmother was probably the first person who I thought was beautiful. She was incredibly stylish, she had big hair, big cars. I was probably 3 years old, but she was like a cartoon character. She'd swoop into our lives with presents and boxes, and she always smelled great and looked great.

If it weren't for Criminal Records, Wax-n-facts and other indie record stores I could have only sold my CD's at my shows and by mail order as an independent artist. The greatest stores that have character and include a much wider range of music of music are all independent, mom and pop stores.

Anne of Austria (with great submission to a Crowned Head do I say it) was a B----. She had spirit and courage without parts, devotion without common morality, and lewdness without tenderness either to justify or to dignify it. Her two sons were no more Lewis the Thirteen's than they were mine.

It strikes me as unfair, and even in bad taste, to select a few of them for boundless admiration, attributing superhuman powers of mind and character to them. This has been my fate, and the contrast between the popular estimate of my powers and achievements and the reality is simply grotesque.

Neither heredity nor environment determine character. But whether we give in to or overcome the negative messages we are exposed to as we wend our way through life is often determined by whether our parents, teachers, mentors and friends exposed us to good examples and morally inspiring ideas.

I don't concern myself with thinking ahead to the finished product. I focus more specifically on what the character is experiencing. Once you relieve yourself of the very arbitrary and always punishing pressure of what an audience is expecting you to do, acting becomes a lot more fun and pure.

It's really important to me that the actors bring a lot of elements of the characters to the process so they own it, so it's personal to them, so it's not just me saying, "You stand here, you say this, you do this, you feel this." No, you bring it up from in here and then let's work with that.

To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.

What helped me a lot was that I chose an American lead protagonist, because that liberated a lot from my own knowledge. If I had approached it from the perspective of an Indian main character, I think I would have assumed a lot of knowledge and I would have resented the presence of the author.

I love factoids. It's hard for me to keep those out. It just takes realizing that it's stopping the character. Part of it is the decision to keep things where you want to train the spotlight. For me, it's the personal side. I always ask, How does the person inside the character relate to this?

Athens is the birthplace of modern tragedy. In the Greek tragic plays, the tableau of the characters would become a statue, like the statue of Oedipus reaching up to the Gods with blood spilling out of his eyes. I love the way the Greeks would immortalize experience. Things that all of us feel.

I went up on stage, and said, "Why did the chicken cross the road? To check out the chicks." I was a genius at 10. Try telling that at 21, and you look hacky and stupid. That was the only joke I've ever told. Everything since has been character voices, doing impressions or just telling stories.

In particular, for my character, Celeste [in Big Little Lies], there was a way in which we wanted to present her, because she has sort of barriers that she has to put up for protection because of things that are going on in her life. Yet she wants to be, I suppose, very presentable but neutral.

One doesn't simply write about Lyndon Johnson. You get the Johnson treatment from beyond the grave - arm around you, nose to nose. I should admit that he also reminds me of my father, quite an overbearing and narcissistic character. And in some ways, he reminds me of myself. Another workaholic.

I felt 'Gone with the Wind' would last five years, and it's lasted over 70 and into a new millennium. There is a special place in my heart for that film and Melanie. She was a remarkable character - a loving person - and because of that, she was a happy person. And Scarlett, of course, was not.

If you string together a set of speeches expressive of character, and well finished in point and diction and thought, you will not produce the essential tragic effect nearly so well as with a play which, however deficient in these respects, yet has a plot and artistically constructed incidents.

I was always fond of visiting new scenes, and observing strange characters and manners. Even when a mere child I began my travels, and made many tours of discovery into foreign parts and unknown regions of my native city, to the frequent alarm of my parents, and the emolument of the town-crier.

Learning to endure times of disappointment, suffering, and sorrow is part of our on-the-job training. These experiences, while often difficult to bear at the time, are precisely the kinds of experiences that stretch our understanding, build our character, and increase our compassion for others.

I'm going to pull myself together for a while and think-try to determine what character of a woman I am; for, candidly, I don't know. By all the codes which I am acquainted with, I am a devilishly wicked specimen of the sex. But some way I can't convince myself that I am. I must think about it.

People doing rote assembly-line movements, or someone tossing dough over and over in a pizza parlour is boring. It’s boring to watch and boring to perform. But if you’re a bad pizza thrower who drops the dough or watches it stick to the ceiling, then we know something more about your character.

When I leave the theater I can always hear people talking about the character, and everyone always says, "You know, I know someone like her." And I always think, Everyone knows someone like the characters; nobody is like the character. Nobody wants to admit that they are a little bit like that.

What I enjoy most are those times when I get an idea and it just flows - the words coming so fast that I'm scribbling to keep up with my characters. I don't have any writing must-haves; this is a good thing, since I've done a lot of my writing in random places like the playground or the subway.

If you want to be free to serve Jesus, there’s no question—stay single. Marriage takes a lot of time. But if you want to become more like Jesus, I can’t imagine any better thing to do than to get married. Being married forces you to face some character issues you’d never have to face otherwise.

There's a theory that says that life is based on a competition and the struggle and the fight for survival, and it's interesting because when you look at the fractal character of evolution, it's totally different. It's based on cooperation among the elements in the geometry and not competition.

Filmmaking in general is about feeling and not about theory. You need to know a lot of rules about filmmaking: character development, grammar, and all these thing, but then you use it instinctively. I ask myself this question all the time. I have no solid theory, I just do what I feel is right.

Although I'm very lazy when it comes to writing, I'm not that lazy when it comes to thinking. I like to develop the plan of a short story, then cut it as short as possible, try to evolve all the necessary details. I know far more about the characters than what actually comes out of the writing.

I definitely prefer directing, hands down. I'm a lazy writer and it wasn't until I got into directing that I now have a real impetus when I'm sitting at my computer. Now that I know what it's like to get to bring characters and their stories to fruition, I'm addicted. I'm a junkie. I want more.

Because of mathematics precise, formal character, mathematical arguments remain sound even when they are long and complex. In contast, common sense arguments can generally be trusted only if they remain short; even moderately long nonmathematical arguments rapidly becomes farfetched an dubious.

Formed on the good old plan, A true and brave and downright honest man! He blew no trumpet in the market-place, Nor in the church with hypocritic face Supplied with cant the lack of Christian grace; Loathing pretence, he did with cheerful will What others talked of while their hands were still.

Good habits are developed in the workshops of our daily lives. It is not in the great moments of test and trial that character is built. That is only when it is displayed. The habits that direct our lives and form our character are fashioned in the often uneventful, commonplace routine of life.

With Wings of the Butterfly, John Urbancik infuses his tale of shapeshifters, romance and pack rivalry with some unexpected and welcome surprises. Fluid prose, gore galore and all-too human characters make this unusual, fast-paced novella a must for fans who like their horror served blood-rare.

A female writer does definitely get more attention if she writes about male characters. It's true. It's considered somehow more literary, in the same way that it's more literary to write about supposedly male subjects, such as war. You're considered more seriously by the literary establishment.

Writing is a solitary existence. Making a movie is controlled chaos - thousands of moving parts and people. Every decision is a compromise. If you're writing and you don't like how your character looks or talks, you just fix it. But in a movie, if there's something you don't like, that's tough.

There are people who follow me on Twitter and tell me how much they don't like me, how much they don't want me on the show, and that they hope I die. And it's not just about the character. They tell me how they've never liked Scott Foley, and that he's a stupid, white, plain-bread looking fool.

Malick is so far on the other side of the spectrum in terms of his character. Malick is a complete recluse, and not at all driven by ego or championing who he is as an individual. It's all about the art. Whereas Herzog is constantly placing himself into the engine. Malick is such a gentle poet.

While you, the leader, can teach many things, character is not taught easily to adults who arrive at your desk lacking it. Be cautious about taking on reclamation projects regardless of the talent they may possess. Have the courage to make character count among the qualities you seek in others.

I think we all suffer from guilt at some point in our lives, but for the most part I never really regret, and I try to always remain positive. Yes, I think that those issues are very interesting to play in a character, and they're prominent issues in life, and I think people can relate to them.

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