James Callis Quotes

I feel this way about a lot of movies, that the characters are idealized versions of people. For better or worse, I am as fascinated with human flaws as anything.

Old Mr. Rarx was not a pleasant man to look at, nor yet to talk to, or to be with, for no one could help seeing that he was a sordid and selfish character, and that he had warped further and further out of the straight with time.

There are ugly aspects to every single person's character. In being truthful, actors do have to show the ugly side of someone's character. We all behave like dicks sometimes.

The characters are whole, real people to me that I'm getting to know, and since real people are all flawed, so are my characters, I hope.

Even though I love my mother, I didn't want to make an idealized portrait of her. I'm fascinated more by her defects - they are funnier than her other qualities.

I like telling stories of imperfect people because most people are imperfect.

My characters are not plastic.

We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.

The seven blunders that human society commits and cause all the violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, and politics without principles.

All of the Marvel characters have flaws to them; all of them have a deep humanity to them.

I choose grey characters, as I enjoy playing a human character. I don't shy away from showing the shortcomings of my characters.

if an author would have us feel a strong degree of compassion, his characters must not be too perfect.

I knew that suffering did not enoble; it degraded. It made men selfish, petty and suspicious. It absorbed them in small things...it made them less than men; and I wrote ferociously that we learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.

All of the things that the bible warns you of being: jealous, covetous, murderous, selfish, etc., that's kind of how humans are.

Marriage provides an ideal setting for overcoming any tendency to be selfish or self-centered. I think one of the reasons that we are counseled to get married early in life is to avoid developing inappropriate character traits that are hard to change.

I don't think being flawed is a bad thing for a character... nor do I think it's a bad thing for a person in life, because that's how we all are.

I try to have a balance of things you like and things you don't like about a character. But once you start that, all these scripts are like, "You play the douchebag friend of Ashton Kutcher." It's all these characters that are overconfident or hyper-masculine.

If you've got more ambiguous characters or stock stereotypes, the plastic comes through and they don't work as well.

Artists are the worst [people]. They are selfish, self-centred; they don't care what happens.

Selfish people are in a way terribly capable of great loves.

This is a speculating and selfish age; and to think 'money will answer all things,' is too much the characteristic of Americans.

In real life, I don't fall in love with the guy who wines and dines me, I fall in love with the flaws and the humanity. When I see someone get embarrassed or when I see them wearing their heart on their sleeve, I want to see that in movies. I hate seeing the put-together people, and then it makes everyone think they're supposed to look like that. It's all a bunch of BS.

So each man, like each plant, has his parasites. A strong, astringent, bilious nature has more truculent enemies than the slugs and moths that fret my leaves. Such a one has curculios, borers, knife-worms; a swindler ate him first, then a client, then a quack, then smooth, plausible gentlemen, bitter and selfish as Moloch.

I believe in storytelling, not story-selling. I want people to believe the characters are real. So I'm a realist.

You are still young, so you think only of your own self. You do not notice the tribulations that occur all around you, to other people. Do not protest; it is true. I am not condemning you. I was as selfish as you, when I was your age. It is the custom of the young to be selfish... But someday you will understand that nobody passes through this world without suffering-no matter what you think of them and their supposed good fortune.