Top 1200 American Character Quotes & Sayings - Page 13

And the American people are the greatest people in the world. What makes America the greatest nation in the world is the heart of the American people: hardworking, innovative, risk-taking, God- loving, family-oriented American people.

For me acting is passion, emotion, and creating the character and the whole world around the character. We enjoy all that. Sleeping on time, eating healthy, you are what your lifestyle is.

When I was growing up, I didn't realize that the idiosyncrasies of my mother's character had something to do with our culture. After growing up and reflecting and making more Asian-American friends, I learned that a lot this is something a lot of people grow up with.

You have to play the character in the best way you know how and do what you need to do in order to bring that character to life and not worry about the millions of people that you may be disappointing!

If you do a character that resonates enough, people are always going to see you as that character. It will just be up to me to make choices where I can flex other muscles.

There is a very definite Russian heart in me; that never dies. I think you're born and you live your life with it and you die with it. I'm very much an American - my books tend to be about American things, but inside there's that sort of tortured, long-suffering, aching, constantly analysing Russian soul underneath the happy American exterior.

I think everyone has some sort of connection to Gatsby as a character... he's created himself according to his own emotions and dreams and lifted himself by his bootstraps from a poor kid in the Midwest and created this image that is The Great Gatsby and it's a truly American story in that regard.

The habit of seen the public rule, is gradually accustoming the American mind to an interference with private rights that is slowly undermining the individuality of the national character. There is getting to be so much public right, that private right is overshadowed and lost. A danger exists that the ends of liberty will be forgotten altogether in the means.

The American Cancer Society has done the American public a really great disservice.

'Hotel Rwanda' is an American product, not a Rwandan one, made primarily for American audiences.

I paint American people, and I tell American stories through the paintings I create.

It seems to me that the American popular song, growing out of American folk music, is the basis of the American musical theater… it is quite legitimate to use the form of the popular song and gradually fill it out with new musical content.

As a loyal American and I think a patriotic American, no, I don't want Sarah Palin to be president.

The American war is over, but this is far from being the case with the American Revolution.

I came up with American Splendor. Some people think it's American Squalor.

A little girl thought I was mean like my character on 'Zoey,' and I convinced her that 'Logan' is just a fake character and I am really a nice guy.

Being a first-generation Cuban American, my story represents the American Dream.

An American credit card is just as good in Europe as American gold used to be.

The American people...have a stake in non-conformity. For they know that the American genius is non-conformist.

And a lesson in this movie is dig beneath the surface. And so with my words, with my character, I purposely created a character that was away from how you've known me thus far in my career.

As a young actor, I was advised to bide my time. Back then, there weren't good roles for someone like me. There were handsome leading men and character actors for smaller supporting roles. But I was told to hang in there, and it was good advice. We're all character actors now. Even a handsome man is a character actor at my age.

I'm not offended if you call me an African American. I prefer a black American.

Sometimes an actor performs a character, but sometimes an actor just performs. With writing, I don't think it's performing a character, really, if the character you're performing is yourself. I don't see that as playing a role. It's just appearing in public.

We know that there were so many Japanese American soldiers in World War II who were fighting in Europe despite the fact that their families, their parents were back home in American prison camps. It's savagely ironic that between themselves and the African-American soldiers, who were also segregated and didn't see the fruition of the work the culminated in the Civil Rights Act until the '60s, that these American heroes and their stories are not well known; and the fact that the 442nd/100th became the most decorated unit in U.S. history.

Parties do not maintain themselves. They are maintained by effort. The government is not self-existent. It is maintained by the effort of those who believe in it. The people of America believe in American institutions, the American form of government and the American method of transacting business.

Today, we have come a distance. We have made a lot of progress. That cannot be denied. You cannot dispute the fact that our country is so different from 50 years ago. But we still have problems. There are too many people that have been left out and left behind, and they are African American, they are White, Latino, Asian American, and Native American.

I can think of no faster way to unite the American people behind George W. Bush than a terrorist attack on an American target overseas. And I believe George W. Bush will quickly unite the American people through his foreign policy.

A cartoon character isn't a specific person. It isn't Tom Cruise or George Clooney playing the part, it's a character that could be you. It's easier for you to get drawn into it in a special way.

Winning takes character. Workers get the most out of themselves. When a body has limited talent, it must muster all its resources of character to overcome adversity.

The African-American experience is one of the most important threads in the American tapestry.

There is something in the character of every man which cannot be broken in--the skeleton of his character; and to try to alter this is like training a sheep for draught purposes.

When I'm given a role, I'm consumed by a passion to bring to life a character that exists only on paper. I mull over the character for days and internalise his feelings.

I'm married to an American, and although we live in Europe, I think of myself as an honorary American.

I never agree to do a character that molests a woman. I have been very conscious not to do such roles. I believe that even a villain should have character, which people can remember.

Usually I start with a concept, which I then sketch out so that I can get a feel for the character. The character doesn't really become real to me until I draw them.

I couldn't be more American if I tried. I was born in Ethiopia, but I was raised and educated as an American.

I did my Doctorate on the House Un-American Activities Committee's effect on the American theater.

Let's overwhelm the Castro regime with iPhones, iPads, American cars and American ingenuity.

I make a playlist for every character I portray. Music plays a huge part in helping me understand a character. Every time I get a new role, I will take a chunk of time to just sit and listen to a bunch of songs and select the ones that make sense in my mind for that character. I can't even explain how much it helps me.

There is a lot in American politics (and in American life) that is angry, greedy, reckless and violent.

The stealing of American research, of course, ultimately takes American jobs.

The American advertiser has made the superior American magazine of today possible.

Leaving American disaster victims to languish is morally reprehensible and un-American.

[And on going from character to leading actor] I don't approach anything differently; I just approach it as a character. I'm always astounded at the fact that I've ever played a leading character in anything [Laughs]. And my wife concurs with that, frankly. She always thought I would be, at best, the wacky neighbor on a sitcom, so this is all just a surprise and a joy.

The characters are born from repetition, from repeatedly thinking about them. I have their outline in my head. I become the character and as the character I visit the locations of the story many, many times. Only after that I start drawing the character, but again I do it many, many times, over and over. And I only finish just before the deadline.

Perhaps I am still very much of an American. That is to say, naïve, optimistic, gullible. In the eyes of a European, what am I but an American to the core, an American who exposes his Americanism like a sore. Like it or not, I am a product of this land of plenty, a believer in superabundance, a believer in miracles.

There's a theory in gameplay, particularly in first person shooters, that sometimes you don't want to have that much of a character because then it destroys the experience of the player being that character.

I'm completely Americanized - I have an American accent, an American wife - but a residue of me is foreign.

There's somewhat of a real fascination with American bands and American mythology in London.

There's a pressure to be the wrestler that you are, that character that you've created 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It's tough for wrestlers sometimes to sort of have that separation between person and character.

I've travelled a lot, but I am essentially American. All my input has been American.

I have spent my life judging the distance between American reality and the American dream.

I want to be true to the character and maintain some consistency and give the audience what they love while at the same time keeping things fresh and grow the character.

The most important thing you can do as an actor is bring as much of yourself to the character to ground the character in some sort of reality, and then you build around it and on top of it.

We don't reinvest in the American people. We don't put enough money into American education.

I love a certain kind of acting style that I would call non-American, which tends to be more detail-oriented and less externalized. There's a kind of naturalism that I often find in non-American actors. I also find that quality in the American actors I work with, but I like to bring in those influences creatively.

Now, being a POW certainly doesn't qualify anyone to be president. But it does reveal character. This is the kind of character that civilizations from the beginning of history have sought in their leaders.

The problem with the American health-care system that it is not working for the American family.

I really believe that when you're playing a character that everything is contained in the script. If I'm pulling from things from my own life, then I think I'm being disingenuous to the character and the story.

American capitalism finds its sharpest and most expressive reflection in the American cinema.