Shakespeare Plays Quotes & Sayings

In actual fact, however, the revolt of Ibsen and Shaw against the conventional nineteenth century drama could very well be described as a return to Shakespeare, as an attempt once again to present human beings in their historical and social setting and not, as playwrights since the Restoration had done, either as wholly private or as embodiments of the social manners of a tiny class. Shakespeare's plays, it is true, are not, in the Shavian sense, "dramas of thought," that is to say, not one of his characters is an intellectual: it is true, as Shaw says, that, when stripped of their wonderful diction, the philosophical and moral views expressed by his characters are commonplaces, but the number of people in any generation or society whose thoughts are not commonplace is very small indeed. On the other hand, there is hardly one of his plays which does not provide unending food for thought, if one cares to think about it. — W. H. Auden

I have been doing acting my whole life. I did plays in high school. I take it pretty seriously. I used to do a lot of Shakespeare and Shakespearean festivals and monologues. — Vinny Guadagnino

You know how they categorize Shakespeare's plays, right? If it ends with a wedding, it's a comedy. And if it ends with a funeral, it's a tragedy. — Robyn Schneider

Shakespeare pulls on us and demands the best of us. You never successfully wrestle one of his plays to the ground and say, 'See? That's It!' — Jack O'Brien

You travel the world, you go see different things. I like to see Shakespeare plays, so I'll go - I mean, even if it's in a different language. I don't care, I just like Shakespeare, you know. I've seen Othello and Hamlet and Merchant of Venice over the years, and some versions are better than others. Way better. It's like hearing a bad version of a song. But then somewhere else, somebody has a great version. — Bob Dylan

Classical plays require more imagination and more general training to be able to do. That's why I like playing Shakespeare better than anything else. — Vivien Leigh

Shakespeare is God, of course. I have studied his plays for the vast majority of my sentient life. When I was a kid, my parents found an old copy of the LP recording of Richard Burton in John Gielgud's Broadway production of Hamlet and they gave it to me for my birthday. I listened to it till the grooves wore thin and I was off and running. — Ken Ludwig

On, I don't think I'm a genius!' cried Josie, growing calm and sober as she listened to the melodious voice and looked into the expressive face that filled her with confidence, so strong, sincere and kindly was it. 'I only want to find out if I have talent enough to go on, and after years of study be able to act well in any of the good plays people never tire of seeing. I don't expected to be a Mrs. Siddons or a Miss Cameron, much as I long to be; but it does seem as if I had something in me which can't come out in any way but this. When I act I'm perfectly happy. I seem to live, to be in my own world, and each new part is a new friend. I love Shakespeare, and am never tired of his splendid people. Of course I don't understand it all; but it's like being alone at night with the mountains and the stars, solemn and grand, and I try to imagine how it will look when the sun comes up, and all is glorious and clear to me. I can't see, but I feel the beauty, and long to express it. — Louisa May Alcott

Faced with a wealth of text but a poverty of context, scholars have focused obsessively on what they can know. They have counted every word he wrote, logged every dib and jot. They can tell us (and have done so) that Shakespeare's works contain 138,198 commas, 26,794 colons, and 15,785 question marks; that ears are spoken of 401 times in his plays; that dunghill is used 10 times and dullard twice; that his characters refer to love 2,259 times but to hate just 183 times; that he used damned 105 times and bloody 226 times, but bloody-minded only twice; that he wrote hath 2,069 times but has just 409 times; that all together he left us 884,647 words, made up of 31,959 speeches, spread over 118,406 lines. — Bill Bryson

If you want more people to come to the theatre, don't put the prices at £50. You have to make theatre inclusive, and at the moment the prices are exclusive. Putting TV stars in plays just to get people in is wrong. You have to have the right people in the right parts. Stunt casting and being gimmicky does the theatre a great disservice. You have to lure people by getting them excited about a theatrical experience. — Catherine Tate

If one good deed in all my life I did,
I do repent it from my very soul. — William Shakespeare

But man, proud man,
Dressed in a little brief authority,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep. — William Shakespeare

In designing the scenery and costumes for any of Shakespeare's plays, the first thing the artist has to settle is the best date for the drama. This should be determined by the general spirit of the play more than by any actual historical references which may occur in it. — Oscar Wilde

[Anton] Chekhov is the most produced playwright in the world after Shakespeare, and most of the people in my sort of audience would have seen at least one of his plays. — Robert Dessaix

In the plays of Shakespeare man appears as he is, made up of a crowd of passions which contend for the mastery over him, and govern him in turn. — Thomas B. Macaulay

Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragic play written early in the career of William Shakespeare about two teenage "star-cross'd lovers" whose untimely deaths ultimately unite their feuding households. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal "young lovers". (From Wikipedia) — Jane Austen

Jacobean plays, before Shakespeare, were particularly visceral. — Christopher Eccleston

I am a man who used to wear the tights. We traveled the country doing two Shakespeare plays for bored college students for about a year. I think I'd probably still be doing it now if I hadn't just randomly decided to go to a sketch group audition. That led to doing improv, which led to the Daily Show. But it was fun while it lasted. — Rob Corddry

It is often noted, for instance, that Shakespeare's plays are full of ocean metaphors ("take arms against a sea of troubles," "an ocean of salt tears," "wild sea of my conscience") and that every one of his plays has at least one reference to the sea in it somewhere. — Bill Bryson

Shakespeare's plays were a great Teutonic Valhalla with brilliant sunshine at times and violent tempests at others. The world to him was a battlefield, but his sense of poetic justice, his sublime faith in life and its infinite resources, guided the battles. — Bjornstjerne Bjornson

If one considers the characters in the plays of Shakespeare, in the poems of the Roman poet Ovid, in the Greek tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides, and even in the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt, they can be recognized in our daily lives. Their actions were driven by the same motives as ours - ambition, love, pride, fear, anger, sympathy, and fun. — John H. Vanston

...There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog's obey'd in office. - Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand! Why dost though lash that whore? Strip thine own back; Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind For which thou whipst her. The usurer hangs the cozener. — William Shakespeare

Shakespeare's plays often turn on the idea of fate, as much drama does. What makes them so tragic is the gap between what his characters might like to accomplish and what fate provides them. — Nate Silver

Shakespeare's plays are not in the rigorous and critical sense either tragedies or comedies, but compositions of a distinct kind; exhibiting the real state of sublunary nature, which partakes of good and evil, joy and sorrow, mingled with endless variety of proportion and innumerable modes of combination; and expressing the course of the world, in which the loss of one is the gain of another; in which, at the same time, the reveller is hasting to his wine, and the mourner burying his friend; in which the malignity of one is sometimes defeated by the frolick of another; and many mischiefs and many benefits are done and hindered without design. — Samuel Johnson

Plays by Alan Ayckbourn have been attracting larger audiences in the regional theatres than those of Shakespeare. — Alan Ayckbourn

[Talking about Rosalind in As You Like It] She disguises herself as a boy, drops all the covering inhibitions of "femininity", and really searches for her true self (...) Her disguise gives her the ability to find out about herself, what she really thinks and feels (...). And she can do all this freely, without having anyone in power tell her how women should or should not behave.(...) — Tina Packer

I'm fascinated by failure, and I'm fascinated by finality. Shakespeare's historical plays are more universal than his comedies because they relate to the finality of life. Without finality, life would not be beautiful. — George Hickenlooper

It's the one touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. (That isn't original. I got it out of one of Shakespeare's plays). However, — Jean Webster

I acted at school but got very bad parts - things that they'd made up in Shakespeare plays like 'Guard 17' - so I wrote plays and gave myself parts, then I wrote sketches, then I did stand-up. Even in the school nativity I was the emu in the manger. — Jack Whitehall

They'd performed more modern plays sometimes in the first few years, but what was startling, what no one would have anticipated, was that audiences seemed to prefer Shakespeare to their other theatrical offerings. — Emily St. John Mandel

Why, why is this?
Think'st thou I'ld make a lie of jealousy,
To follow still the changes of the moon
With fresh suspicions? No; to be once in doubt
Is once to be resolved: exchange me for a goat,
When I shall turn the business of my soul
To such exsufflicate and blown surmises,
Matching thy inference. 'Tis not to make me jealous
To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,
Is free of speech, sings, plays and dances well;
Where virtue is, these are more virtuous:
Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw
The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt;
For she had eyes, and chose me. No, Iago;
I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;
And on the proof, there is no more but this,
Away at once with love or jealousy! — William Shakespeare

I was already devouring literature and I was the ripe old age of 15 when I decided to be an actor. I just thought plays were the most fantastic way of expressing life. I thought I'd discovered Shakespeare - 'hey, there's a new guy in town, don't know if anyone's read him.' I was just excited about the whole thing, from day one. — Chiwetel Ejiofor

One of the most painful parts of teaching mathematics is seeing students damaged by the cult of the genius. The genius cult tells students it's not worth doing mathematics unless you're the best at mathematics, because those special few are the only ones whose contributions matter. We don't treat any other subject that way! I've never heard a student say, "I like Hamlet, but I don't really belong in AP English - that kid who sits in the front row knows all the plays, and he started reading Shakespeare when he was nine!" Athletes don't quit their sport just because one of their teammates outshines them. And yet I see promising young mathematicians quit every year, even though they love mathematics, because someone in their range of vision was "ahead" of them. — Jordan Ellenberg

If we divide human attributes into "masculine" and "feminine" and strengthen only those attributes that "belong" to that sex, we cut off half of ourselves from ourselves as human beings, condemned forever to search for our other half. The world is in desperate need of multilayered human beings with the voices, stamina, and insight to break through our current calcified ways of doing things, (...) The patriarchal structures of honor, shame, violence, and might is right, do as much harm to Hamlet, Edgar, Lear, and Coriolanus as they do to Ophelia, Desdemona, Lady Macduff (...)
(...) To have feelings, intuitive flights of understanding, a desire to have knowledge of what is happening below the surface, to serve. These are often called "feminine" attributes, and it is true that many women in the plays possess them. But they also belong to Kent, Ferdinand, Florizel, Camillo, as well as the women. So they are not "feminine" attributes: they are human attributes. — Tina Packer

Learning (Shakespeare's plays) ... in school was a bit of a bore. — Al Pacino

You may be able to read Bernard Shaw's plays, you may be able to quote Shakespeare or Voltaire or some new philosopher; but if you in yourself are not intelligent, if you are not creative, what is the point of this education? — Jiddu Krishnamurti

The solution which I am urging is to eradicate the fatal disconnection of subjects which kills the vitality of our modern curriculum. There is only one subject-matter for education, and that is LIfe in all its manifestations. Instead of this single unity, we offer children
Algebra, from which nothing follows; Geometry, from which nothing follows; Science, from which nothing follows; History, from which nothing follows; a Couple of Languages, never mastered; and lastly, most dreary of all, Literature, represented by plays of Shakespeare, with philological notes and short analyses of plot and character to be in substance committed to memory. Can such a list be said to represent Life, as it is known in the midst of living it? The best that can be said of it is, that it is a rapid table of contents which a deity might run over in his mind while he was thinking of creating a world, and has not yet determined how to put it together — Alfred North Whitehead

Shakespeare wrote great plays that we're still watching all these years later. Charlie Chaplin made great comedies and they are still as funny today as they ever were. — Leonard Maltin

It is true that there are few plays of Shakespeare that I haven't done. — Judi Dench

I grew up with Shakespeare, and there are so many wonderful teachings in those plays. The stories are all so unique and timeless. There is just so much learning in that body of work, and that is something I will always go back to. — Juliet Rylance

One of the things that gives me a lot of pleasure about both the solo show and the book is that it tells people about my dad. He really was an important man. He was a kind of pioneer of regional theater. He was the first American producer to ever produce all of Shakespeare plays. — John Lithgow

He [Hamlet] sees ghosts and listens to dreams. And when his ghost father tells him that he (Hamlet Senior) was killed by his brother and asks Hamlet Junior to avenge his death, in the right, honorable way, Hamlet says yes, yes, yes, he'll do it.
But somehow he never gets round to it. Not like the other two young men in the play. The Norwegian Prince Fortinbras(...) has made his life [!!] pursuing the honor that his father lost when Hamlet Senior beat him in single combat. (...). When the lord chamberlain,Polonius, is killed, his son, Laertes, returns to the court immediately, demanding restitution, (...).
So there is no shortage of examples of how young men are expected to and do act in this world where honor demands an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. But Hamlet doesn't do it. Instead, he beats up on his girlfriend and he's cruel to his mother. — Tina Packer

By wrenching this increasingly outdated revenge play into the present, Shakespeare forced his contemporaries to experience what he felt and what his play registers so profoundly: the world had changed. Old certainties were gone, even if new ones had not yet taken hold. The most convincing way of showing this was to ask playgoers to keep both plays in mind at once, to experience a new Hamlet while memories of the old one, ghostlike, still lingered. Audiences at the Globe soon found themselves, like Hamlet, straddling worlds and struggling to reconcile past and present. — James Shapiro

Whatever happened to me in my life, happened to me as a writer of plays. I'd fall in love, or fall in lust. And at the height of my passion, I would think, 'So this is how it feels,' and I would tie it up in pretty words. I watched my life as if it were happening to someone else. My son died. And I was hurt, but I watched my hurt, and even relished it, a little, for now I could write a real death, a true loss. My heart was broken by my dark lady, and I wept, in my room, alone; but while I wept, somewhere inside I smiled. For I knew I could take my broken heart and place it on the stage of The Globe, and make the pit cry tears of their own. — Neil Gaiman

One reason current discussions of justice are so impoverished is that our heterogeneous society does not have many shared texts. Shakespeare's plays are among the few secular texts that remain common enough and complex enough to sustain these conversation. His answers to our dilemmas may not "bear on all points." Yet they teach us not to underestimate the action of the flower. — Kenji Yoshino

Shakespeare's plays are more violent than 'Scarface.' — Al Pacino

The anti-apartheid prisoners on the island, like so many in every age and nation, found that Shakespeare had a peculiar ability to gentle their condition. They used to gather clandestinely to read the plays; on one occasion, the book was passed around for each man to mark his favourite lines. — Daniel Hannan

Why, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the
little ones: I can compare our rich misers to
nothing so fitly as to a whale; a' plays and
tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at
last devours them all at a mouthful: — William Shakespeare

This sounds so bogus, but I would love to, at some point when my kids are in college, is just go do a whole season at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and do a year of plays. Most actors miss the days of live theater. — Donal Logue

Merciful heaven, Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man, Dressed in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most assured His glassy essence
like an angry ape Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens, would all themselves laugh mortal. — William Shakespeare

This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;
And to do that well craves a kind of wit:
He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons, and the time,
And, like the haggard, check at every feather
That comes before his eye. This is a practise
As full of labour as a wise man's art
For folly that he wisely shows is fit;
But wise men, folly-fall'n, quite taint their wit. — William Shakespeare

Let's dispel the idiotic notion that the plays were not written by Shakespeare. Of course they were written by Shakespeare. How can we look at someone with a body of work like Mozart and say that a human being is not capable of a body of work like Shakespeare's with language? We can't. He wrote the plays. — Paul Barnes

You've never heard of the Trickster King?" Puck asked, shocked.
The girls shook their heads.
"The Prince of Fairies? Robin Goodfellow? The Imp?"
"Do you work for Santa?" Daphne asked.
"I'm a fairy, not an elf!" Puck roared. "You really don't know who I am! Doesn't anyone read the classics anymore? Dozens of writers have warned about me. I'm in the most famous of all of William Shakespeare's plays."
"I don't remember any Puck in Romeo and Juliet," Sabrina muttered, feeling a little amused at how the boy was reacting to his non-celebrity.
"Besides Romeo and Juliet!" Puck shouted. "I'm the star of a Midsummer Night's Dream!"
"Congratulation," Sabrina said flatly. "Never read it. — Michael Buckley

You're just trying on different identities, like everyone in those Shakespeare plays. And the people we pretend at, they're already in us. That's why we pretend them in the first place. — Gayle Forman

I think going from doing TV and straight plays to Shakespeare is weird enough because you have this heightened language, and you are telling a story through metric poetry. But I think music is that place beyond poetry. — Tamsin Greig

The difficulty in the way of writing a children's play is that Barrie was born too soon. Many people must have felt the same about Shakespeare. We who came later have no chance. What fun to have been Adam, and to have had the whole world of plots and jokes and stories at one's disposal. — A.A. Milne

I have been right, Basil, haven't I, to take my love out of poetry, and to find my wife in Shakespeare's plays? Lips that Shakespeare taught to speak have whispered their secret in my ear. I have had the arms of Rosalind around me, and kissed Juliet on the mouth. — Oscar Wilde

What we do have for Shakespeare are his plays - all of them but one or two - thanks in very large part to the efforts of his colleagues Henry Condell and John Heminges, who put together a more or less complete volume of his work after his death - the justly revered First Folio. — Bill Bryson

I started out doing a lot of theater, a lot of Shakespeare, classic plays. — Andre Holland

The thing that is always so surprising about plays written in another century is how remarkably elastic they are. When you listen to the way in which Shakespeare attacks relationships, for example, even though the words may start off sounding foreign, in actuality they are so accessible, the motivations so clear, the resonances so contemporary. When you put it in a modern context - we could well be in a place with someone like Gaddafi or Mubarak - it becomes apparent how Richard III resonates with that type of personality, with media and manipulation, alliances and petty jealousies. — Kevin Spacey

All the great Shakespeare plays are about killing. 'Alas, poor Yorick,' that's about death. And in 'Romeo and Juliet' everyone up ends up dying. The greatest dramas in the world are all about sex, violence and death. — Ray Winstone

The histories and tragedies of Shakespeare that Lincoln loved most dealt with themes that would resonate to a president in the midst of civil war: political intrigue, the burdens of power, the nature of ambition, the relationship of leaders to those they governed. The plays illuminated with stark beauty the dire consequences of civil strife, the evils wrought by jealousy and disloyalty, the emotions evoked by the death of a child, the sundering of family ties or love of country. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

I think reading Shakespeare's plays when I was young was extremely important. He had the ability to make utter strangers come alive. — Rita Dove

[Shakespeare realized that] Women are able to understand themselves better on a personal level and survive in the world if they dress in men's clothing, thus living underground, safe (...). The presence of women disguising themselves as men dictates that the play be a comedy; women remaining in their frocks, a tragedy. In four great tragedies -Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear- almost all the women die (...).
How much the women have to adhere to the rules and regulations of their enviroment makes a large difference. Once Rosalind [disguised as a man in As You Like It] has run away from the court, she has no institutional structures to deal with. Ophelia [in her frocks] is surrounded tightly by institutional structures of family, court, and politics; only by going mad can be get out of it all. — Tina Packer

Because women are such potent ingredients of men's imaginations, we see how much power men feel women have over them, and how women must be suppressed, defanged, or idealized in one way or another. How, with Eve, they are often thought to be the root of the evil in the world -which says more about the man or men who wrote that story than about Eve herself. Eve is curious and wants knowledge, not power over others. [...] Both onstage and offstage, women have two levels of understanding concerning how to behave -one, to behave the way men want them to behave and forget that what they want might be different; two, to find out how they really feel and decide whether or not they are going to act on it! — Tina Packer

If you look at Shakespeare's history plays, what the setting of monarchy allows is this extraordinary intensification of emotions and predicament. — Tom Hooper

I'm a big lover of Shakespeare. In fact, the only plays that I've ever done professionally in New York have been Shakespearian. — Samira Wiley

Once more into the breach — William Shakespeare

The hymns of David, the plays of Shakespeare, the metaphysics of Descartes, the crimes of Borgia, the virtues of Antonine, the atheism of yesterday and the materialism of today, were all emanations of divine thought, doing their appointed work. It was the duty of the church to deal with them all, not as though they existed through a power hostile to the deity, but as instruments of the deity to work out his unrevealed ends. — Henry Adams

Astrology had an important role in the ancient world. You can't understand many things unless you know something about astrology - the plays of Shakespeare and so on. — Steven Pinker

I've done maybe twelve of Shakespeare's plays. I was with the Royal Shakespeare Company for years. Whatever influence that has never leaves you. If you learn to drive a car, and you learn the right way if there is ever a right way. You learn the good aspects, you learn to drive properly. And that never leaves you. — Charles Dance

One of the reasons why I love to do Shakespeare is that this great artist was able to talk to a wide variety of audiences. He could do the bawdy plays and the humor and the clowns-as you know, because you're a wonderful Stephano-that speaks to the populace, the masses, the groundlings, whatever. — Julie Taymor

And the pathetic part of it is that frequently those who have the least justification for a feeling of achievement bolster up their egos by a show of tumult and conceit which is truly nauseating. As Shakespeare put it: ... man, proud man, / Drest in a little brief authority, / ... Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven / As make the angels weep. — Dale Carnegie

Let's not play games, Mr. Cratchett," I replied. "I wanted to let you know that I'll be coming in for an appointment with Mr. Raisin on Tuesday morning at eleven o'clock. I shall need about an hour and would prefer it if we were not disturbed during that time. I hope that he will be free at that hour but just so you both know, if he is not, then I am perfectly willing to sit in your office until he is free. I shall bring a book with me to pass the time. I shall bring two, if need be. I shall bring the complete works of Shakespeare if he insists on keeping me waiting interminably and those plays will get me through the long hours. But I will not leave until I have seen him, are we quite clear on that? Now, I wish you a very pleasant Sunday, Mr. Cratchett. Enjoy your lunch, won't you? Your breath smells of whisky. — John Boyne

You know I can't stand Shakespeare's plays, but yours are even worse. — Leo Tolstoy

Despite modifying his writing to suit the audiences, despite writing plays to draw large crowds, despite using other people's materials and copying plotlines from history, Shakespeare remains the preeminent artist of the English language and his reputation has reached such stratospheric heights as to border on idolatry (or Bardolatry as some people call it). Shakespeare was a product of his time and learned from his peers, but his plays transcend his time as all great works do - his genius is his own. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare? — William Shakespeare

Being a theater actor, I've done a lot of plays where I've seen someone else play the same role in another production. Especially with the classics: Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams. — Jacki Weaver

Life is the tragedy,' she said bitterly. 'You know how they categorize Shakespeare's plays, right? If it ends with a wedding, it's a comedy. And if it ends with a funeral, it's a tragedy. So we're all living tragedies, because we all end the same way, and it isn't with a goddamn wedding. — Robyn Schneider

Most of my career has been spent with the RSC doing Shakespeare, and the thing you learn from Shakespeare is that his historical plays don't bear anything other than a basic resemblance to history. — Antony Sher

'Tis not to make me jealous
To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,
Is free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well;
Where virtue is, these are more virtuous. — William Shakespeare

Suppose, for instance, that men were only represented in literature as the lovers of women, and were never the friends of men, soldiers, thinkers, dreamers; how few parts in the plays of Shakespeare could be allotted to them; how literature would suffer! We might perhaps have most of Othello; and a good deal of Antony; but no Caesar, no Brutus, no Hamlet, no Lear, no Jaques
literature would be incredibly impoverished, as indeed literature is impoverished beyond our counting by the doors that have been shut upon women. — Virginia Woolf

A brilliant treatment of the history of Purgatory in England and its survivals and echoes throughout Shakespeare's plays, above all Hamlet. — Carol Zaleski

Immersing myself in Shakespeare's plays, reading them closely under the guidance of a brilliant, plain-spoken professor changed my life: It opened up the great questions; it put my petty problems into perspective. It got me out of bed in the mornings and kept me in the library late into the night. — Jhumpa Lahiri

Here comes Monseiur Le Beau.
Rosalind: With his mouth full of news.
Celia: Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young.
Rosalind: Then shall we be news-crammed.
Celia: All the better; we shall be the more marketable. — William Shakespeare

I got an M.F.A. in acting from NYU, and part of our training is to learn how to use swords in combat situations in a performance and Shakespeare plays where you have to fight. — Danai Gurira

Let's say there was a burning building and you could rush in and you could save only one thing: either the last known copy of Shakespeare's plays or some anonymous human being. What would you do? — Woody Allen

People are fascinated by the rich: Shakespeare wrote plays about kings, not beggars. — Dominick Dunne

When I started in the theater, I'd do plays by Shakespeare or Ibsen or Chekhov, and they all created great women's roles. — Annette Bening

To read Shakespeare is to feel encompassed -- the plays contain practically every word I know, practically every character type I have ever met, and practically every idea I have ever had. — Kenji Yoshino

Shakespeare is a great psychologist, and whatever can be known of the heart of man may be found in his plays. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A new report claims that William Shakespeare was a marijuana user and may have been high when he wrote some of his plays. Which explains that one line: 'To be, or not to be ... Wait, what was the question?' — Jimmy Fallon

Unlike most readers in Antiquity who read their books aloud, we have developed the convention of reading silently. This lets us read more widely but often less well, especially when what we are reading - such as the plays of Shakespeare and Holy Scripture - is a body of oral material that has been, almost but not quite accidentally, captured in a book like a fly in amber. — Jaroslav Pelikan

Exposure is about, among other things, the ferocity of the press and the way - in an echo of some of Shakespeare's plays - the modern media creates heroes to destroy them. — Mal Peet

Shakespeare is a drunken savage with some imagination whose plays please only in London and Canada. — Voltaire

I am spellbound by the plays of Shakespeare. And I am spellbound by the second law of thermodynamics. The great ideas in science, like the Cro-Magnon paintings and the plays of Shakespeare, are part of our cultural heritage. — Alan Lightman

Under the greenwood tree,
Who loves to lie with me
And tune his merry note,
Unto the sweet bird's throat;
Come hither, come hither, come hither.
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather. — William Shakespeare

One man in his time plays many parts — William Shakespeare

It may take a decade or two before the extent of Shakespeare's collaboration passes from the graduate seminar to the undergraduate lecture, and finally to popular biography, by which time it will be one of those things about Shakespeare that we thought we knew all along. Right now, though, for those who teach the plays and write about his life, it hasn't been easy abandoning old habits of mind. I know that I am not alone in struggling to come to terms with how profoundly it alters one's sense of how Shakespeare wrote, especially toward the end of his career when he coauthored half of his last ten plays. For intermixed with five that he wrote alone, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, and The Tempest, are Timon of Athens (written with Thomas Middleton), Pericles (written with George Wilkins), and Henry the Eighth, the lost Cardenio, and The Two Noble Kinsmen (all written with John Fletcher). — James Shapiro

A witty and informative professor posits that more authors do not choose titles borrowed from Shakespeare's sonnets and plays for the reason some people claim not to have partners: "All the good ones are taken." — Thomas C. Foster

I played a little basketball, but basketball interfered with theater season. That's when we did our term plays and did nutshell versions of Shakespeare for English classes. And, believe me, I got a fair amount of looks from the guys on the team. 'You're in theater but you can play football?' — Dennis Haysbert