Oscar Wilde Quotes

Our names are labels, plainly printed on the bottled essence of our past behavior.

After all, it’s what we’ve done that makes us what we are.

One is made by all the things around one. There are many things that have made one. For a writer to go around looking for things that have made him is asking for trouble. It's like giving a character to yourself. Can't do it. Can't do it. These things are just there. Is that enough?

I've got a life, you know, take me in the totality of my actions and I'll tell you, I will stand with my record.

A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do, Nothing else.

There are many things in common with my life and my character in 'American Crime.' My upbringing has definitely helped me out in this role.

I don't think circumstances change who you are as a person. I don't believe they change your values - unless you willingly would like them to.

The older I got, I started to realize more it's not necessarily that any of us are inherently bad or good; you just kind of carve your own way, and you are your experiences and your surroundings and what you grow up in.

To be a real man or woman, you've got to know what you believe in. You've got to understand that your actions have consequences and that they are connected to everything that you are.

To be honest, I think for part of my late teens my character didn't really develop very much. I was in a state of cold storage.

Everyone is the sum total of past experiences. A character doesn't just spring to life at age thirty.

We need to teach the next generation of children from day one that they are responsible for their lives. Mankind's greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear.

Everything that I've done has made me who I am today. You know, it's cliche, but it's true.

Things happen to us in unpredictable ways, but the effect that that has on the kind of people who we become actually is not only open to chance - we can influence it in pretty profound ways.

I tend to deal with characters who are sort of at that same point of wrestling with, 'Who am I going to be as an adult? What do I believe? How am I defining myself in the context of my culture and my peer groups, my family?'

I think I can see more clearly now - about how the pattern of past experiences has shaped who I am and the characters I have played - and I'm grateful for that.

Everybody's past and history informs them.

I always want my character to have dimension, no matter what phase of life or situation they find themselves in.

You have to just make the choices you make in life. I made the choices I made because I believed they were right for me.

I let the actions of my life stand for what I am as a human being. Contend with that, not the words.

Our life is our life. If we waste it, we're fools.

A man really determines himself by what he does.

I understand in the context of acting, it allows me to manifest character, but I am no wiser then the next person that is living up a life, that is acting and reacting to the built-up circumstances around them.

The secret to adulthood is that 99% of the time, you actually know the right thing to do. Adults make it hard when they are deciding whether to do the right thing.

I do not look to Hollywood to give me character clues.