Iambic Pentameter Quotes & Sayings

The hardest part of writing 'William Shakespeare's Star Wars' was probably the sheer amount of iambic pentameter and tiptoeing around certain scenes I knew would be hot-button issues for 'Star Wars' fans. — Ian Doescher

Why do you think they don't like me? They hired me for God's sake. It's not like there was any mystery about my history."
"I heard you used iambic pentameter once when you should have used a catalexis."
"Huh?"
"Believe me, whatever the reason is, it will make as much sense."
Swift thought this over. Max was probably right, but it was still a weird, unhappy feeling. His mouth curved. "Do you really know what catalexis is?"
"Not a clue. I heard you mention it once. It stuck in my memory because it sounds like a cross between a Cadillac and a Lexus. — Josh Lanyon

I've spent so much time with iambic pentameter that I can now recognize it when I hear it in conversation or a movie - it's like a weird, useless superpower. — Ian Doescher

I really have no interest in delivering the iambic pentameter, I just want to kill myself. I don't mind other people doing it. I say that, but really I don't want to watch other people doing it. I get embarrassed. — Bill Nighy

With Shakespeare, if you're not going to do the iambic pentameter, do some other play. — John C. McGinley

I have to determine whether the joy of craplets is worth preserving. — Howard Stringer

Nor are we the culmination of evolution, except in the sense that there has never been another species so bizarrely ingenious that it could create both iambic pentameter and plutonium. — David Quammen

It may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinence of the Govt. from interference in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others.
[Letter to the Reverend Jasper Adams, January 1, 1832] — James Madison

They cracked more than his ribs. — Benjamin Alire Saenz

I would talk in iambic pentameter if it were easier. — Howard Nemerov

The day Rick Ross dives into the crowd, is the day we find out who his true fans are. — Kevin Hart

He drained a bar dry last night and is managing to speak in iambic pentameter. I have two glasses of wine with dinner and I can barely decipher the TV Guide the next day. I'm so freaking old." "Join — Lucy Parker

As an adult, I think I wanna be living in New York City and help a lot of homeless people and try to become vegan and maybe be a band with some good friends and be making a living and be happy with how much money I have. — Rachel Trachtenburg

I used to have a sister, but I never got to meet her because she died after two days, I think. So if I got a tattoo, it would probably have to be something to do with my sister. — Chloe Grace Moretz

In the feudal fiefdom of school, rank was determined early. You could change your hair and clothes. You could, having learned your lesson, not write a paper on Julius Caesar entirely in iambic pentameter or you could not tell anyone if you did. You could switch to contact lenses, compensate for your braininess by not doing your homework. Every boy in school could grow twelve inches. The sun could go fucking nova. And you'd still be the same grotesque you'd always been. — Karen Joy Fowler

It's good for your body to have a break. Even when you're training, you have to have a cheat day every week. The body reacts better to training if you give it intervals of not training, or you relax the diet. — Luke Evans

The iambic pentameter owes its pre-eminence in English poetry to its genius for variation. Good blank verse does not sound like a series of identically measured lines. It sounds like a series of subtle variations on the same theme. — James Fenton

But if all else fails, I can always write her a sonnet." "A sonnet?" said Hugh. "No woman can resist having her name rhymed with a flower in iambic pentameter," said Daniel. — Helen Simonson

When something seems to change in the world, the rishis said, it is really you that is changing. — Deepak Chopra

We are all allowed to support whoever we'd like to in this country. That's the greatest part about being an American - one of them, that is; you know what I mean? — Tyler Perry

Shakespeare wrote his sonnets within a strict discipline, fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, rhyming in three quatrains and a couplet. Were his sonnets dull? Mozart wrote his sonatas within an equally rigid discipline - exposition, development, and recapitulation. Were they dull?. — David Ogilvy

What Hamlet suffers from is a lack of zombies. Let us say Rosencrantz and Guildenstern show up - Ho-HO! Now you've got something that stirs the, um, something that stirs things that are stirrable. BOOM! A pack of ravenous flesh-eaters breaks open their heads and sucks out their eyeballs. No need for iambic pentameter because they are grunting, groaning annihilators of humanity with no time for meter. You're not asleep in the back of English class anymore, are you? This is what I'm talking about. Zombies. Learn it, live it, love it. — Libba Bray

It's good to have a lot of once-in-a-lifetimes in your lifetime. If you get the chance to skydive, go skydiving. If you're offered a part in a weird Shakespeare play in San Diego, slap on some tights and rock out some iambic pentameter. — Neil Patrick Harris

Could a literary life be referred to with the iambic pentameter of, say, harnessing wind power, transplanting hearts or saving the whales. Or did it necessitate the sombre and monotonous dirge of software, priority banking or turbine building. — Anita Nair

Why didn't vandals ever quote Shakespeare? I'd love to see graffiti in iambic pentameter. — J.A. Konrath

The conventional wisdom with David Mamet is, you do not change a word. And that agrees with me. If you want to change any of David's words, it's like wanting to change the iambic pentameter in Shakespeare - you should do something else. — John C. McGinley

You know, I used to say, when people say, 'How do you think about what to write about in the poems every week?' And I say, 'Well, I have to turn it in on Monday, so on Sunday nights I turn the shower to iambic pentameter and it sort of works out that way.' — Calvin Trillin