Quotes & Sayings About Othello And Desdemona

OTHELLO Not Cassio kill'd! then murder's out of tune, And sweet revenge grows harsh. DESDEMONA O, falsely, falsely murder'd! — William Shakespeare

Glad you like my first tableau. Come and see number two. Hope it isn't spoilt; it was very pretty just now. This is 'Othello telling his adventures to Desdemona'."
The second window framed a very picturesque group of three. Mr March in an armchair, with Bess on a cushion at his feed, was listening to Dan, who, leaning against a pillow, was talking with unusual animation. The old man was in shadow, but little Desdemona was looking up with the moonlight full upon her face, quite absorbed in the story he was telling so well. The gay drapery over Dan's shoulder, his dark colouring and the gesture of his arm made the picture very striking and both very striking, and both spectators enjoyed it with silent pleasure, till Mrs Jo said in a quick whisper:
"I'm glad he's going away. He's too picturesque to have among so many romantic girls. Afraid his 'grand, gloomy and peculiar' style will be too much for our simple maids. — Louisa May Alcott

There are no preconditions for jealousy. You don't have to be right, you don't have to be reasonable. Take Othello. He was neither right nor reasonable, and Desdemona ended up dead. I wouldn't mind Leanne ending up dead. I wouldn't mind exploding her into fireworks of peacock and pearl. — Franny Billingsley

OTHELLO [Rising.] O, she was foul! - I scarce did know you, uncle; there lies your niece, Whose breath, indeed, these hands have newly stopp'd: I know this act shows horrible and grim. GRATIANO Poor Desdemona! I am glad thy father's dead: Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief Shore his old thread in twain: did he live now, This sight would make him do a desperate turn, Yea, curse his better angel from his side, And fall to reprobance. OTHELLO 'Tis pitiful; but yet Iago knows That she with Cassio hath — William Shakespeare

Juliet singles out Romeo. Desdemona claims Othello. They have no doubts, the young, no fear, no pride. — Agatha Christie

The word "jealousy" is often used as if it were synonymous with envy; but I think the distinction worth preserving. Jealousy is predominantly concerned with the fear of loss of something one possesses, envy with the wish to own something another possesses. Othello suffers from the fear that he has lost Desdemona's love. Iago suffers from envy of the position held by Cassio, to which he feels entitled. — Anthony Storr

I look forward to the day when indigenous actors can play Hamlet and Ophelia and not just Othello and Desdemona. — Shari Sebbens

'Othello' was my first Shakespearean discovery. I was obsessed with drama at school, and I studied the play for my English GCSE. Desdemona is the part that everyone wants, but Iago's wife Emilia is the one I've always been drawn to. — Michelle Dockery

DESDEMONA: I hope my noble lord esteems me honest.
OTHELLO: Oh, ay, as summer flies are in the shambles,
That quicken even with blowing. O thou weed,
Who art so lovely fair and smell'st so sweet
That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst ne'er been born!
DESDEMONA: Alas, what ignorant sin have I committed?
OTHELLO: Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,
Made to write "whore" upon? — William Shakespeare

Space-ships and time machines are no escape from the human condition. Let Othello subject Desdemona to a lie-detector test; his jealousy will still blind him to the evidence. Let Oedipus triumph over gravity; he won't triumph over his fate. — Arthur Koestler

Her stare fixed me. Without rancour and without regret; without triumph and without evil; as Desdemona once looked back on Venice.
On the incomprehension, the baffled rage of Venice. I had taken myself to be in some way the traitor Iago punished, in an unwritten sixth act. Chained in hell. But I was also Venice; the state left behind; the thing journeyed from. — John Fowles

Willow trees, willow trees they remind me of Desdemona
I'm so damned literary
and at the same time the waters rushing past remind
me of nothing — Frank O'Hara