Macbeth Himself Quotes & Sayings

Macbeth:
If we should fail?
Lady Macbeth:
We fail?
But screw your courage to the sticking place,
And we'll not fail. — William Shakespeare

I grew up with it. As a young actor, I was always aware of the brilliant work of Shakespeare. We studied Romeo & Juliet and Macbeth in school. As a young actor, you're always mystified and intrigued by such brilliant work. To actually have the chance to be involved in this production was a wonderful thing for me. — Ed Westwick

The two sides of the equation are the same. We have a tautology. The definition is meaningless. — Norman Macbeth

At 18 I began painting steadily fulltime and at age 20 had my first New York show at the Macbeth Gallery. — Andrew Wyeth

My wide eyes make me look much younger without make-up, and although it's fun to have a line in innocence corrupted, I doubt I'll get to play the vampy vixen or a Hedda Gabler or Lady Macbeth. — Talulah Riley

I'd make a wonderful Lady Macbeth. I'll wear a pair of platform shoes or something. — Bette Midler

I was my class playwright and I wrote plays set in villages with kings and chiefs.My plays were about treason and betrayals. If they were influenced by Macbeth, they were also influenced by Nigerian plays I had seen and Village Headmaster, a television drama series I had watched as a child. — Sefi Atta

'Macbeth' is one of the best operas ever, and doing it was a great experience. I added some things to the opera based from my experience on the movie - such as some of the special effects and bits of film - to make it new and interesting. It was a very good work and a very good experience. — Dario Argento

Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back. — William Shakespeare

One aspect of Samantha's personality that drove me nuts was her tendency to reveal herself via literary allusions. She called it a quirk, but it was more of a compulsion. Her mother was Lady Macbeth; her father, Big Daddy. An uncle she liked was Mr. Micawber, a favorite governess, Jane Eyre; a doting professor, Mr. Chips.
This curious habit of hers quickly made the voyage from eccentric to bizarre when she began to invoke the names of literary characters to describe moments in our relationship. When she thought I was treating her rudely, she called me Wolf Larsen; if I was standoffish, I was Mr. Darcy; when I dressed too shabbily, I was Tom Joad.
Once, in bed, she yelled out the name Victor as she approached orgasm. I assumed she was referring to Victor Hugo because she'd been reading 'Les Miserables.'. It didn't really bother me that much though it was a little odd being with a woman who thought she was having sex with a dead French author. — John Blumenthal

I felt like I was hobbling, like one oof the old crones from Act I of Macbeth - God knows my hair felt scraggy enough that I must have looked the part. — P.C. Cast

Macbeth as a whole is awash with questions, sometimes questions responded to by another question, which helps to generate an atmosphere of uncertainty, anxiety and paranoid suspicion. — Terry Eagleton

Macbeth is contending with the realities of this world, Hamlet with those of the next. — Jones Very

This tune goes manly.
Come, go we to the King. Our power is ready;
Our lack is nothing but our leave. Macbeth
Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may.
The night is long that never finds the day.
They exit. — William Shakespeare

And I felt comfort. Finally. All I'd wanted for so long was for someone to explain everything that had happened to me in this same way. To label it neatly on a page: this leads to this leads to this. I knew, deep down, it was more complicated than that, but watching Jason, I was hopeful. He took the mess that was Macbeth and fixed it, and I had to wonder if he might, in some small way, be able to do the same for me. So I moved myself closer to him, and I'd been there ever since. — Sarah Dessen

You have always had individual directors who begin in the advertising or commercial world, but they are probably exceptions rather than the traditional pattern. — Ann Macbeth

I see any production of any nature being good for the development of the whole industry. — Ann Macbeth

I remember the astonishment I felt when I first read Shakespeare. I expected to receive a powerful esthetic pleasure, but having read, one after the other, works regarded as his best: "King Lear," "Romeo and Juliet," "Hamlet" and "Macbeth," not only did I feel no delight, but I felt an irresistible repulsion and tedium ... Shakespeare can not be recognized either as a great genius, or even as an average author ... far from being the height of perfection, [King Lear] is a very bad, carelessly composed production, ... can not evoke among us anything but aversion and weariness ... All his characters speak, not their own, but always one and the same Shakespearian, pretentious, and unnatural language ... — Leo Tolstoy

I think that the BBC's attitude toward the show while it was in production was very similar to that which Macbeth had toward murdering people - initial doubts, followed by cautious enthusiasm and then greater and greater alarm at the sheer scale of the undertaking and still no end in sight. — Douglas Adams

My hands are of your colour; but I shame
To wear a heart so white. — William Shakespeare

Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble - and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Macbeth: How does your patient, doctor?
Doctor: Not so sick, my lord, as she is troubled with thick-coming fancies that keep her from rest.
Macbeth: Cure her of that! Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon her heart.
Doctor: Therein the patient must minister to himself. — William Shakespeare

The idea of Macbeth as a conscience-torm ented man is a platitude as false as Macbeth himself. Macbeth has no conscience. His main concern throughout the play is that most selfish of all concerns: to get a good night's sleep. — Mary McCarthy

Be not lost So poorly in your thoughts. — William Shakespeare

Shakespeare, who never could think up a plot by himself, found this one [Macbeth] in Holinshed's Chronicles, changing it just enough so that no one would recognize the source. He didn't count on the resourcefulness of modern scholars, who have to discover things like this to become associate professors. — Richard Armour

We are here predominantly to support independent filmmakers and their needs. We are also here to assist people actually in their production, non-commercial people in their production. — Ann Macbeth

I'm happy for you Agastya,you're leaving for a more meaningful context. This place is like a parody, a complete farce, they're trying to build another Cambridge here. At my old University I used to teach Macbeth to my MA English classes in Hindi.English in India is burlesque. But now you'll get out of here to somehow a more real situation. In my time I'd wanted to give this Civil Service exam too, I should have. Now I spend my time writing papers for obscure journals on L. H. Myers and Wyndham Lewis, and teaching Conrad to a bunch of half-wits. — Upamanyu Chatterjee

Why a should a dream be any less real than this table. Or Macbeth be less real than today's newspaper. — Jorge Luis Borges

The multiplying villainies of nature do swarm upon him ... [from Macbeth] — Alan Moore

I want to play Eva Peron. I've already done a lot of Shakespeare, but I'd like to do Lady Macbeth. — Tamara Tunie

Macbeth was the first play I ever read. — Alan Cumming

We are the only state that does not have a State Film Corporation there to support the commercial industry. — Ann Macbeth

I sometimes have these spells of compulsive truth. But as Lady Macbeth would say, "The fit is momentary." — Ken Kesey

Don't wear green in your dressing room,' suggested Miss Spink.
'Or mention the Scottish play, added Miss Forcible. — Neil Gaiman

Look to the lilies how they grow! 'Twas thus the Saviour said, that we, Even in the simplest flowers that blow, God's ever-watchful care might see. — David Macbeth Moir

When I was 16, I played Macbeth at school and my English teacher said, 'I think you may have acting talent. Try to get into the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and see where you get.' I wouldn't have thought of that at all. I wanted to be a surgeon, but I wasn't a clever man. — David Suchet