Important Hamlet Quotes & Sayings

This is the very ecstasy of love. — William Shakespeare

You take far too many chances," she murmured.
"And you don't take nearly enough. I propose to change that. — Nicole Castroman

If the distinction is not held too rigidly nor pressed too far, it is interesting to think of Shakespeare's chief works as either love dramas or power dramas, or a combination of the two. In his Histories, the poet handles the power problem primarily, the love interest being decidedly incidental. In the Comedies, it is the other way around, overwhelmingly in the lighter ones, distinctly in the graver ones, except in Troilus and Cressida
hardly comedy at all
where without full integration something like a balance is maintained. In the Tragedies both interests are important, but Othello is decidedly a love drama and Macbeth as clearly a power drama, while in Hamlet and King Lear the two interests often alternate rather than blend. — Harold Clarke Goddard

Miss Havisham is an important feminine literary figure in the tradition of Antigone (though it's significant that Antigone is fighting to bury something and Miss Havisham refuses, as it were, to bury the corpse). Like Hamlet, she's focused on what everyone would rather not know or would like to forget, and she seems crazy / stuck as well as bitter, but she's also a perfect prototype of a performance artist. She's intentionally hard to deal with inviting the audience to remain with the violated body, the evidence of violence. — Laura Mullen

he is a witness or has seen or learned about it and he does not report it, — Anonymous

Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in, bear t that th' opposed may beware of thee. — William Shakespeare

To exist is a habit I do not despair of acquiring. — Emile M. Cioran

When art calls, you have to follow it. It doesn't happen often, so take the opportunity when it strikes. In all reality, what I do is art. I do create fabulous pieces of decorative baked goods. — A.M. Willard

To persevere
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness: 'tis unmanly grief. — William Shakespeare

Maybe I flatter myself when I think that I have things in common with Hamlet, that I have
an important mission, that I'm temporarily mixed up about how it should be done. Hamlet had one
big edge on me. His father's ghost told him exactly what he had to do, while I am operating
without instructions. But from somewhere something is trying to tell me where to go, what to do
there, and why to do it. Don't worry, I don't hear voices. But there is this feeling that I have a
destiny far away from the shallow and preposterous posing that is our life in New York. And I
roam.
And I roam. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I feared vulnerability more than my actual emotional pain itself! — Karen Salmansohn

What we did is we went on those parabolic flights, which people like to call the vomit comet. Basically, the plane throws you up into the air and catches you. And for about 30 seconds, you feel like there's no gravity. So what we did was we did a series of eight of those in a row. And every time we landed, we stayed perfectly still for the five minutes in between while the plane is setting up so that we could just continue the routine where we had left off. So the final video you see is all one take. And we seem to be weightless the entire time. — Damian Kulash

It's all a muddle in my head, graves and nuptials and the different varieties of motion. — Samuel Beckett

Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honour's at the stake. — William Shakespeare

He had a talent for asking exactly the right questions to lead me to my own answers. Just being near him made things clearer. — K.D. Sarge

The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions. If this is agreed between us, then I feel at liberty to put forward a few ideas and suggestions because you will not allow them to fetter that independence which is the most important quality that a reader can possess. After all, what laws can be laid down about books? The battle of Waterloo was certainly fought on a certain day; but is Hamlet a better play than Lear? Nobody can say. Each must decide that question for himself. To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries. Everywhere else we may be bound by laws and conventions-there we have none. — Virginia Woolf

This is the very coinage of your brain: this bodiless creation ecstasy. — William Shakespeare

Lies, lies are the place where darkness grows. — Kami Garcia

Pretend to be mad and talk a lot. Then - and this is the important bit - do nothing at all until you absolutely have to and then make sure everyone dies. — Jasper Fforde

The mere mention of a witch was almost enough to frighten us out of our wits. This was natural enough, because of late years there were more kinds of witches than there used to be; in old times it had been only old women, but of late years they were of all ages - even children of eight and nine; it was getting so that anybody might turn out to be a familiar of the Devil - age and sex hadn't anything to do with it. In our little region we had tried to extirpate the witches, but the more of them we burned the more of the breed rose up in their places. — Mark Twain