Dialogue From Plays Quotes & Sayings

It is from this wide extension of design that so much instruction is derived. It is this which fills the plays of Shakespeare with practical axioms and domestick wisdom. It was said of Euripides, that every verse was a precept and it may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil and oeconomical prudence. Yet his real power is not shown in the splendour of particular passages, but by the progress of his fable, and the tenour of his dialogue; and he that tries to recommend him by select quotations, will succeed like the pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his house to sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen. — Samuel Johnson

A Coy Aversion

...a flutter
too shy
to be seen... — Muse

Snatched away like socks glommed off the sale table at Wal-Mart, dog treat snapped up by an eager German Sheppard, mouse picked off the lawn by a swooping owl. — Dennis Vickers

The physicality was important to me. Because the film has Shane Black's dialogue, and [Robert] Downey's delivery, and you look at [Jon] Favreau, Don Cheadle and Gwyneth [Paltrow], it is this heightened level with a comedic aspect to it. Everything is grounded in reality, but it plays a little heightened. — James Badge Dale

The choice of daring life is a great spirit. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I write plays because writing dialogue is the only respectable way of contradicting yourself. I put a position, rebut it, refute the rebuttal, and rebut the refutation. — Tom Stoppard

When I first started writing plays I couldn't write good dialogue because I didn't respect how black people talked. I thought that in order to make art out of their dialogue I had to change it, make it into something different. Once I learned to value and respect my characters, I could really hear them. I let them start talking. — August Wilson

As a matter of writing philosophy, if there is one, I try not to ever plot a story. I try to write it from the character's point of view and see where it goes. — Andre Dubus III

My parents took me to see plays, starting from when I was very little. Oftentimes, I was too young to understand. I don't know what my parents were thinking - 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf' when I was eight years old, that kind of thing. So lots of times, I didn't understand what was going on, but I just loved the sound of dialogue. — Aaron Sorkin

I write plays because dialogue is the most respectable way of contradicting myself. — Tom Stoppard

It's just a stupid sword, she said, aloud this time ...
... but it wasn't.
Needle was Robb and Bran and Rickon, her mother and her father, even Sansa. Needle was Winterfell's grey walls, and the laughter of its people. Needle was the summer snows, Old Nan's stories, the heart tree with its red leaves and scary face, the warm earthy smell of the glass gardens, the sound of the north wind rattling the shutters of her room. Needle was Jon Snow's smile. — George R R Martin

A great many quite good plays could be performed with rhythmic howls in the place of dialogue and lose almost nothing by the change. — Rebecca West

I like what Oliver Lakes does on the saxophone. The saxophone comes pretty close to the sound of the human voice and when Oliver plays with other sax players, it's like a dialogue. — Yusef Komunyakaa

The whole idea of jazz came about was the interpretation of the human dialogue, trading fours. When someone's soloing and someone picks up the solo and plays it back at 'em, it was the imitation of the human dialogue. It was how people spoke, through music. — Wendell Pierce

I've seen some terrible plays, but I generally enjoy myself. One play I walked out of, I have a tremendous respect for the author. That was Robert Wilson, something called 'Network,' which consisted of Wilson sitting on a bunk, the dialogue of the movie 'Network' looped in while a chair on a rope went up and down. — August Wilson

Noah Baumbach writing is really wonderful. I think the way he plays out each character with a unique voice is really impressive, and rhythmically his dialogue works. — Naomi Watts

Confidence is more attractive than anything you could put on your body. — Sophia Amoruso

I don't ever want to grow up. I guess I'm like Peter Pan. Grown-ups have problems. I want to stay happy. — Shaquille O'Neal

Nature is a collective idea, and, though its essence exist in each individual of the species, can never in its perfection inhabit a single object. — Henry Fuseli

I love working fictional characters into a piece of history. It plays to my strengths, which are characterization and dialogue, and assists me in my admitted weakness, plot. — Laurie Graham

Be not so set upon poetry, as to be always poring on the passionate and measured pages. Let not what should be sauce, rather than food for you, engross all your application. Beware of a boundless and sickly appetite for the reading of poems which the nation now swarms withal; and let not the Circaen cup intoxicate you. But especially preserve the chastity of your soul from the dangers you may incur, by a conversation with muses no better than harlots. — Cotton Mather

Faith is an excitement and an enthusiasm: it is a condition of intellectual magnificence to which we must cling as to a treasure, and not squander on our way through life in the small coin of empty words, or in exact and priggish argument. — George Sand

I will not play tug o' war. I'd rather play hug o' war. Where everyone hugs instead of tugs, Where everyone giggles and rolls on the rug, Where everyone kisses, and everyone grins, and everyone cuddles, and everyone wins. — Shel Silverstein

Religious fanaticism is not the only clear and present danger in our world. The greatest dangers confronting human kind are still those ancient enemies of war, poverty, ignorance and disease. These create the breeding grounds in which religious extremism flourishes, because people who have been betrayed by the world's political and economic systems often seek refuge in the alternatives offered by religion.

It is often said that the most dangerous person in the world is the person with nothing to lose. The more people in our world who have nothing to lose, the greater the danger of extremism is likely to become. If we are committed to struggling against religious fanaticism, and if we really do stand in awe of human potential, then we need to cultivate a much more intelligent debate about the role religion plays in nurturing that human potential through its shaping of ideas and through the hope and meaning it gives to many millions of lives. — Tina Beattie

Eccentricity, to be socially acceptable, had still to have at least four or five generations of inbreeding behind it. — Osbert Lancaster

I would take plays and I would cut out all the other dialogue and make long monologues because I felt the other kids weren't taking it as seriously as I did. — Sally Field