The Fool King Lear Quotes & Sayings

I am even
The natural fool of fortune. — William Shakespeare

His father had smashed his very first guitar for him, in an early attempt to rid Jude of his musical ambitions. Jude hadn't been able to repeat the act himself, not even onstage, for show, when he could afford all the guitars he wanted. He was, however, perfectly willing to use one as a weapon to defend himself. In a sense he supposed he had always used them as weapons. — Joe Hill

Kent. Who's there?
Fool. Marry, here's grace and a cod-piece; that's a wise man and a fool. — William Shakespeare

The clown figure has had so many meanings in different times and cultures. The jolly, well-loved joker familiar to most people is actually but one aspect of this protean creature. Madmen, hunchbacks, amputees, and other abnormals were once considered natural clowns; they were elected to fulfill a comic role which could allow others to see them as ludicrous rather than as terrible reminders of the forces of disorder in the world. But sometimes a cheerless jester was required to draw attention to this same disorder, as in the case of King Lear's morbid and honest fool, who of course was eventually hanged, and so much for his clownish wisdom. Clowns have often had ambiguous and sometimes contradictory roles to play. ("The Last Feast Of The Harlequin") — Thomas Ligotti

All these freshmen have come in here and worked hard from the beginning. I can't say enough good things about them. They were the No. 1 recruiting class in the country and they're confidant. They know they are the best. That doesn't mean they slack off. They work really hard. Now it's time to go out there and compete. — Alex Bregman

Fool:
"He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's health,
a boy's love, or a whore's oath."
King Lear (III, vi, 19-21) — William Shakespeare

There is nothing in the world that I loathe more than group activity, that communal bath where the hairy and slippery mix in a multiplication of mediocrity. — Vladimir Nabokov

In answer, the news of the Gospel is that extraordinary things happen ... Lear goes berserk on a heath but comes out of it for a few brief hours every inch a king. Zaccheus climbs up a sycamore tree a crook and climbs down a saint. Paul sets out a hatchet man for the Pharisees and comes back a fool for Christ. — Frederick Buechner

A mysterious intersection of chance and attention that goes well beyond the existential surrealism of the 'decisive moment'. — Lee Friedlander

Sunshine takes its intelligent and honourable place in the history of grownup science fiction on the screen and on the page: a genre that seeks to break free of parochialism and think about where and why and what we are without the language of religion ... I loved Sunshine for its radical proposal that humans can and will do something about a catastrophe, and that our weapons could be used up in the service of preservation. — Peter Bradshaw