For some reason, all my characters come to me with their names attached to them. I never have to search for the names.

I think when people mean that Discworld books have become darker they really mean the series is growing up. In ‚The Colour of Magic‘ most of the city is set alight. It’s a joke, in much the same way that the Earth is destroyed almost at the start of Douglas Adams’s ‚The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.‘

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.

I’m not interested in cutting the feet off my characters or stretching them to make them fit my certain political view.

Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed.

My children came out as individuals in their own right. They were not my products. They had their own characters and were very strong-minded. I gave them a lot of freedom when they were still very young. The one thing they got from me is morals. They would never betray anyone. They are really good people.

One of the amazing things about ‚Seven Samurai‘ is that there are a lot of characters. And considering you have so many, and they all have shaved heads, and you’ve got good guys and bad guys and peasants, you get to understand a lot of them without too much being said.

When I write, I try to become different characters.

We should every night call ourselves to an account: what infirmity have I mastered today? what passions opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

There are thousands of boys being wasted daily to our country through being left to become characterless, and, therefore, useless wasters, a misery to themselves and an eyesore and a danger to the nation. They could be saved if only the right surroundings or environment were given to them at the receptive time of their lives.

Trust should be the basis for all our moral training.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Patience is not simply the ability to wait – it’s how we behave while we’re waiting.

When I was making the early stuff, I never expected it to be so big. I was in my own kind of bubble. I never wanted to tour; I just wanted to create music and make a diary I could put out into the world. And sometimes, I became the characters.

All right, then, I’ll go to hell.

Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.

To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.

It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.

The best measure of a man’s honesty isn’t his income tax return. It’s the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.

Every hero becomes a bore at last.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

It’s very rare that you get a director that lets you be creative and bring what you feel your character should do or should be.

I notice that my characters go out to dinner and have fun and take these great trips, but I spend so much time on their lives, I don’t have much of a personal life of my own. I have to sort of remember to fill out that little notebook on me.

I wanted to imbue Ziggy with real flesh and blood and muscle, and it was imperative that I find Ziggy and be him.

Plot exposition that can be gently wound out by the authorial voice and internal monologue of a character in the length of a page has to be delivered in a matter of seconds on the stage.

Humility is the solid foundation of all virtues.

History is present in all my novels. And whether I am directly talking about the sociological moment or just immersing my character in the environment, I am very aware of it.

Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.

The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.

When we see persons of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see persons of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.

Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.

No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.

Any hand that I’ve shaken, any person that I met when I was Joe Blow, now that I’m this guy Kevin Hart, has come back. That’s why I treat everybody with respect. I’m always a nice pleasant guy to meet because when they come back to you, they remember.

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.

Character is power.

Only God Himself fully appreciates the influence of a Christian mother in the molding of character in her children.

In acting, you have to pull from real-life situations, from people, to help develop a character.

No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.

If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.

What I can say is that all my characters are searching for their souls, because they are my mirrors. I’m someone who is constantly trying to understand my place in the world, and literature is the best way that I found in order to see myself.

The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don’t mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.

You cannot be a hero without being a coward.

We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.

The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.

Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.

A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.

For an author, the nice characters aren’t much fun. What you want are the screwed up characters. You know, the characters that are constantly wondering if what they are doing is the right thing, characters that are not only screwed up but are self-tapping screws. They’re doing it for themselves.

Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?

My role 14 years ago in Richard III – that was the first time I played a bad guy and learned a lot about it – they have all the fun!

It’s always appealing to play a character that has to overcome himself as well as an obstacle. It makes the drama so much deeper.

I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! That is character!

He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts; in a uniform manner.

A man should be upright, not be kept upright.

Action is character.

People don’t usually compliment your character.