Quotes & Sayings About The Night Shakespeare

O! she doth teach the torches to burn bright
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.
- Romeo - — William Shakespeare

For the first time in ten years, the March family gathered to perform the Twelfth Night Revels for the village of Blessingstoke, just as they had done in Master Shakespeare's day. The dragon breathed fire while the Turkish Knight brandished his sword at St. George, and when it was finished, the resurrected saint and his sad dragon stood in tableau while the white-robed chorus, of which Portia and I made two, sang of the blood-berried holly and the sweetly clinging ivy. Rather like Brisbane and myself, I thought fancifully. Both evergreen and hardy, one sturdy, one tenacious, and forever undivided. But now there was a new little branch grafted to our union. — Deanna Raybourn

My liege, and madam, to expostulate What majesty should be, what duty is, Why day is day, night night, and time is time, Were nothing but to waste night, day and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief. — William Shakespeare

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence. — William Shakespeare

Antonio: Will you stay no longer? nor will you not that I go with you?
Sebastian: By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over me; the malignancy of my fate might, perhaps, distemper yours; therefore I shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone. It were a bad recompense for your love to lay any of them on you. — William Shakespeare

Look, the world's comforter, with weary gait,
His day's hot task hath ended in the west:
The owl, night's herald, shrieks-'tis very late;
The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest;
And coal-black clouds, that shadow heaven's light,
Do summon us to part, and bid good night. — William Shakespeare

What, keep a week away? Seven days and nights,
Eightscore-eight hours, and lovers' absent hours
More tedious than the dial eightscore times!
O weary reckoning! — William Shakespeare

Olivia: What's a drunken man like, fool?
Feste: Like a drowned man, a fool, and a madman: one draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns him. — William Shakespeare

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

These blessed candles of the night. — William Shakespeare

That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun. — William Shakespeare

O polished perturbation! golden care! That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide To many a watchful night. — William Shakespeare

Though now this grained face of mine be hid
In sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow,
And all the conduits of my blood froze up,
Yet hath my night of life some memory,
My wasting lamps some fading glimmer left,
My dull deaf ears a little use to hear. — William Shakespeare

As I hope
For quiet days, fair issue, and long life,
With such love as 'tis now, the murkiest den,
The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion
Our worser genius can, shall never melt
Mine honour into lust, to take away
The edge of that day's celebration,
When I shall think or Phoebus' steeds are founder'd
Or Night kept chain'd below. — William Shakespeare

Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-browed night;
Give me my Romeo; and, when I shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night ... — William Shakespeare

On the opening night of the Hazzard County High School production of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Buster was going to play Romeo. His sister, Annie, was to play Juliet. Other than Buster, no one backstage seemed to understand that this was a problem. "Let me ask you something, Buster," said Mr. Delano, the high school drama teacher. "Have you heard of the phrase the show must go on?" Buster nodded. "Well," Mr. Delano continued, "this is the kind of moment for which that phrase was coined. — Kevin Wilson

Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours, Makes the night morning, and the noontide night. — William Shakespeare

Come, seeling night, Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day, And with thy bloody and invisible hand Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond Which keeps me pale. Light thickens, and the crow Makes wing to th' rooky wood. Good things of day begin to droop and drowse, While night's black agents to their prey do rouse. — William Shakespeare

Such tricks hath strong imagination, That, if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy; Or in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear! — William Shakespeare

At once, good night-
Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once. — William Shakespeare

30 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste; Then can I drown an eye (unus'd to flow) For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, And moan th' expense of many a vanish'd sight; Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before: But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restor'd, and sorrows end. — William Shakespeare

Is it physical
To walk unbraced and suck up the humors Of the dank morning? What, is Brutus sick, And will he steal out of his wholesome bed To dare the vile contagion of the night? — William Shakespeare

Some say that ever 'gainst the season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long: And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor wi — William Shakespeare

To my mind, 'Dear Brutus' stands halfway between Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 'Into the Woods'. Like them, it is a play about enchantment and disillusion, dreams and reality. — Michael Dirda

What say you, can you love the gentleman?
This night you shall behold him at our feast.
Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,
And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;
Examine every married lineament,
And see how one another lends content;
And what obscured in this fair volume lies
Find written in the margent of his eyes.
This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
To beautify him only lacks a cover.
The fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride
For fair without the fair within to hide.
That book in many's eyes doth share the glory,
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story.
So shall you share all that he doth possess,
By having him, making yourself no less. — William Shakespeare

Come, night, come, Romeo, come, thou day in night; For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night. Whiter than new snow upon a raven's back. — William Shakespeare

Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light:
Such comfort as do lusty young men feel
When well-apparell'd April on the heel
Of limping winter treads, even such delight
Among fresh female buds shall you this night
Inherit at my house; hear all, all see,
And like her most whose merit most shall be: — William Shakespeare

Ay me! For aught that I could every read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth,
But either it was different in blood- — William Shakespeare

He did recall that the summer after graduating from college before he joined the state police he had read Shakespeare. It was the pure language that stupefied him. He would be in a diner reading A Midsummer Night's Dream and his acquaintances were confident he was studying for some test. The test turned out to be the nature of his mind. Shakespeare seemed even truer than history. Literature was against the abyss while history wallowed in it. — Jim Harrison

Hung be the heavens with black! Yield, day, to night! — William Shakespeare

Ah, she doth teach the torches to burn bright, it seems she hangs against the cheek of night like a rich jewel from an Ethiope's ear, beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear. — William Shakespeare

Survival might be insufficient, she'd told Dieter in late-night arguments, but on the other hand, so was Shakespeare. — Emily St. John Mandel

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man. — William Shakespeare

He would reach for me in the middle of the night, nearly every single night, wrapping one of those solid arms around my waist and pulling me in close. So. Close. — Chelsie Shakespeare

By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet
did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods;
since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage,
but music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
and his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music. — William Shakespeare

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

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long. — William Shakespeare

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank
Here we will sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony — William Shakespeare

Asparagus, tinged with ultramarine and rosy pink which ran from their heads, finely stippled in mauve and azure, through a series of imperceptible changes to their white feet, still stained a little by the soil of their garden-bed: a rainbow-loveliness that was not of this world. I felt that these celestial hues indicated the presence of exquisite creatures who had been pleased to assume vegetable form, who, through the disguise which covered their firm and edible flesh, allowed me to discern in this radiance of earliest dawn, these hinted rainbows, these blue evening shades, that precious quality which I should recognise again when, all night long after a dinner at which I had partaken of them, they played (lyrical and coarse in their jesting as the fairies in Shakespeare's Dream) at transforming my humble chamberpot into a bower of aromatic perfume. — Marcel Proust

Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night's body be called thieves of the day's beauty. Let us be Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon, and let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal. — William Shakespeare

Captain of our fairy band,
Helena is here at hand,
And the youth, mistook by me,
Pleading for a lover's fee.
Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be! — William Shakespeare

I have graded my separate works from A to D. The grades I hand out to myself do not place me in literary history. I am comparing myself with myself. Thus can I give myself an A-plus for Cat's Cradle, while knowing that there was a writer named William Shakespeare. The report card is chronological, so you can plot my rise and fall on graph paper, if you like:
Player Piano B
The Sirens of Titan A
Mother Night A
Cat's Cradle A-plus
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater A
Slaughterhouse-Five A-plus
Welcome to the Monkey House B-minus
Happy Birthday, Wanda June D
Breakfast of Champions C
Wampeters, Foma & Grandfalloons C
Slapstick D
Jailbird A
Palm Sunday C — Kurt Vonnegut

What man art thou that, thus bescreened in night,
So stumblest on my counsel?
*Who are you? Why do you hide in the darkness and listen to my private thoughts?* — William Shakespeare

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
-Sonnet 73 — William Shakespeare

Now it is the time of night,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
And we fairies, that do run,
From the presence of the sun,
Follow darkness like a dream. — William Shakespeare

Time's glory is to calm contending kings To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light To stamp the seal of time in aged things To wake the morn and sentinel the night To wrong the wronger till he render right To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours And smear with dust their glittering golden towers - Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece — Ken Follett

He who the sword of heaven will bear
Should be as holy as severe;
Pattern in himself to know,
Grace to stand, and virtue go;
More nor less to others paying
Than by self-offences weighing.
Shame to him whose cruel striking
Kills for faults of his own liking!
Twice treble shame on Angelo,
To weed my vice and let his grow!
O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!
How may likeness made in crimes,
Making practise on the times,
To draw with idle spiders' strings
Most ponderous and substantial things!
Craft against vice I must apply:
With Angelo to-night shall lie
His old betrothed but despised;
So disguise shall, by the disguised,
Pay with falsehood false exacting,
And perform an old contracting. — William Shakespeare

Observe him, for the love of mockery — William Shakespeare

GLOUCESTER: I do not know that Englishman alive With whom my soul is any jot at odds, More than the infant that is born to-night: I thank my God for my humility. — William Shakespeare

Shakespeare is renewed each time you see it or read it. I've seen 'Midsummer Night's Dream' so many times, and each time it's a little different, or a different line leaps out at me. It's like re-reading a good book over and over, always noticing something you hadn't seen the time before - and that's rare. — Michelle Dockery

Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
And call upon my soul within the house;
Write loyal cantons of contemned love
And sing them loud even in the dead of night. — William Shakespeare

Night's candles have burned out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountaintops. Hope tinged with melancholy - like life. — William Shakespeare

Through the forest have I gone. But Athenian found I none, On whose eyes I might approve This flower's force in stirring love. Night and silence.
Who is here? Weeds of Athens he doth wear: This is he, my master said, Despised the Athenian maid; And here the maiden, sleeping sound, On the dank and dirty ground. Pretty soul! she durst not lie Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy. Churl, upon thy eyes I throw All the power this charm doth owe. When thou wakest, let love forbid Sleep his seat on thy eyelid: So awake when I am gone; For I must now to Oberon. — William Shakespeare

If there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it,
Making it momentary as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'
The jaws of darkness do devour it up;
So quick bright things come to confusion. — William Shakespeare

BOYET
A mark! O, mark but that mark! A mark, says my lady!
Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be.
MARIA
Wide o' the bow hand! i' faith, your hand is out.
COSTARD
Indeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout.
BOYET
An if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.
COSTARD
Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.
MARIA
Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul.
COSTARD
She's too hard for you at pricks, sir: challenge her to bowl.
BOYET
I fear too much rubbing. Good night, my good owl.
Exeunt BOYET and MARIA — William Shakespeare

In 1996, Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night' was removed from classrooms after a school board passed a 'prohibition of alternative lifestyle instruction' act. Apparently, a young female character disguised as a boy was a danger to the youth of Merrimack, New Hampshire. — Richard LaGravenese

SONNET 43
When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected;
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright are bright in dark directed.
Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
How would thy shadow's form form happy show
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made
By looking on thee in the living day,
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me. — William Shakespeare

The gray-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
Checkering the eastern clouds with streaks of light. — William Shakespeare

Antioch, farewell! for wisdom sees, those men blush not in actions blacker than the night, will 'schew no course to keep them from the light. One sin, I know, another doth provoke; Murder's as near to lust as flame to smoke. Poison and treason are the hands of sin; Ay, and the targets to put off the shame. Then, lest my life be cropped to keep you clear, By flight I'll shun the danger which I fear. — William Shakespeare

Yet I am doubtful, for I am mainly ignorant. What place this is, and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments. Nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me,
For as I am a man, I think this lady
To be my child Cordelia. — William Shakespeare

Were the world mine... — Shakespeare Society

For this, be sure, tonight thou shalt have cramps,
Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up. Urchins
Shall forth at vast of night that they may work
All exercise on thee. Thou shalt be pinched
As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made 'em. — William Shakespeare

I knew a young lady of the last "romantic" generation who after some years of an enigmatic passion for a gentleman, whom she might quite easily have married at any moment, invented insuperable obstacles to their union, and ended by throwing herself one stormy night into a rather deep and rapid river from a high bank, almost a precipice, and so perished, entirely to satisfy her own caprice, and to be like Shakespeare's Ophelia. Indeed, if this precipice, a chosen and favourite spot of hers, had been less picturesque, if there had been a prosaic flat bank in its place, most likely the suicide would never have taken place. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

ARIEL. The charm dissolves apace,
And, as the morning steals upon the night,
Melting the darkness, so their rising senses
Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle
Their clearer reason.
Their understanding
Begins to swell: and the approaching tide
Will shortly fill the reasonable shores
That now lie foul and muddy. — William Shakespeare

Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak winds
Do sorely ruffle; for many miles about
There's scarce a bush. — William Shakespeare

Ram. My lord constable, the armor that I saw in your tent to-night, are those stars or suns upon it?
Con. Stars, my lord.
Dau. Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope.
Con. And yet my sky shall not want.
Dau. That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and 'twere more honor some were away.
Con. Even as your horse bears your praises; who would trot as well, were some of your brags dismounted.
Henry V, 3.7.69-78 — William Shakespeare

Hark! Peace! It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman, Which gives the stern'st good-night. He is about it. — William Shakespeare

I must become a borrower of the night. — William Shakespeare

I am thy father's spirit;
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night
And, for the day, confin'd to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature,
Are burnt and purg'd away. — William Shakespeare

Kent. Where's the king? Gent. Contending with the fretful elements; Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea, Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main, That things might change or cease; tears his white hair, Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage, Catch in their fury and make nothing of; Strives in his little world of man to outscorn The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain. This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch, The lion and the belly-pinched wolf Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs, And bids what will take all. — William Shakespeare

Is it thy will they image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight? — William Shakespeare

And when he dies, cut him out in little stars, and the face of heaven will be so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no heed to the garish sun. — William Shakespeare

And teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night ... — William Shakespeare

I will go tell him of Hermia's flight:
Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither and back again. — William Shakespeare

My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night
Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about The other four in wondrous motion. — William Shakespeare

My father's spirit in arms! all is not well;
I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!
Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes. — William Shakespeare

Each religion is a brave guess at the authorship of Hamlet. Yet, as far as the play goes does it make any difference whether Shakespeare or Bacon wrote it? Would it make any difference to the actors if their parts happened out of nothingness, if they found themselves acting on the stage because of some gross and unpardonable accident? Would it make any difference if the playwright gave them the lines or whether they composed them themselves, so long as the lines were properly spoken? Would it make any difference to the characters if A Midsummer Night's Dream was really a dream? — Lewis Mumford

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

According to Shakespeare, the Roman populace had made no advance in cleanliness in the centuries between Coriolanus and Caesar. Casca gives a vivid picture of the offer of the crown to Julius, and his rejection of it: And still as he refused it the rabblement shouted, and clapped their chapped hands, and threw up their sweaty night-caps, and uttered such a deal of stinking breath, because Caesar refused the crown, that it had almost choked Caesar, for he swooned and fell down at it. — William Shakespeare

Turn him into stars and form a constellation in his image. His face will make the heavens so beautiful that the world will fall in love with the night and forget about the garish sun. — William Shakespeare

To die, is to be banish'd from myself;
And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her,
Is self from self: a deadly banishment!
What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?
Unless it be to think that she is by,
And feed upon the shadow of perfection.
Except I be by Silvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale;
Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
There is no day for me to look upon;
She is my essence, and I leave to be,
If I be not by her fair influence
Foster'd, illumin'd, cherish'd, kept alive. — William Shakespeare

Come, I
know thou lovest me; and at night, when you come into your
closet, you'll question this gentlewoman about me; and I know,
Kate, you will to her dispraise those parts in me that you love
with your heart. But, good Kate, mock me mercifully; the
rather, gentle princess, because I love thee cruelly. — William Shakespeare

Receive what cheer you may. The night is long that never finds the day. — William Shakespeare

Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose to the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude, and in the calmest and most stillest night, with all appliances and means to boot, deny it to a king? — William Shakespeare

Now, I did know a certain young lady of the 'romantic' generation of not so long ago who, after being mysteriously in love for several years with a certain gentleman whom she could have married at any time without the least difficulty, suddenly broke off their relationship, inventing for herself all manner of insurmountable obstacles, and one stormy night plunged from a high, precipitous cliff into a fairly deep and fast-flowing river, where she perished from her own caprice solely through her attempt to imitate Shakespeare's Ophelia, for, had the precipice, which she had long before singled out and been compulsively drawn to, been less picturesque, and had there been only a prosaically flat bank in its stead, perhaps there would have been no suicide at all. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world; now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on. — William Shakespeare

I did a play in New York at the public theater, a Shakespeare play, and M. Night Shyamalan, who is the writer/director of 'The Village,' came and saw me in the play and asked to go to lunch afterwards. — Bryce Dallas Howard

When thou cam'st first, Thou strok'st me and made much of me; wouldst give me Water with berries in't; and teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night; and then I loved thee And showed thee all the qualities o' th' isle, The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile. — William Shakespeare

With acting, I started very young, and I'd performed for a lot of children in boarding schools, late at night after the dormitory lights were out. I'd have a flashlight, and I'd be Count Dracula, or Shakespeare, or Yogi Bear, and leap from bunk to bunk. I loved the laughter; I liked the way it made people feel. — C. C. H. Pounder

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

This night I hold an old accustomed feast, Whereto I have invited many a guest, Such as I love; and you among the store, One more, most welcome, makes my number more. — William Shakespeare

HIPPOLYTA

But all the story of the night told over,
And all their minds transfigured so together,
More witnesseth than fancy's images
And grows to something of great constancy,
But, howsoever, strange and admirable. — William Shakespeare

Lady, you are the cruel'st she alive
If you will lead these graces to the grave
And leave the world no copy. — William Shakespeare

The books are all leather, and the titles are old. I pause at a collection of Shakespeare. Othello. Romeo and Juliet. A Midsummer Night's Dream. I pull Hamlet out and look at it, but then set it back down on the shelf.
I pass a row of books on philosophy, and another on astrology. Up and down I go, pausing now and then, but not pulling any books out. I'm not sure what I expected to find. The Idiot's Guide to Time Travel? — Mandy Hubbard

As an actress and comedienne, I'm a huge fan of he theatre and the Tricycle in Kilburn is my favourite in London. I dragged my kids to a performance of 'Twelfth Night' there, where they handed out pizza. Who knew that all it takes to get children interested in Shakespeare is a snack? — Arabella Weir

On your eyelids crown the god of sleep,
Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness,
Making such difference 'twixt wake and sleep
As is the difference betwixt day and night
The hour before the heavenly-harness'd team
Begins his golden progress in the east. — William Shakespeare

Come,
Let's have one other gaudy night. Call to me
All my sad captains. Fill our bowls once more.
Let's mock the midnight bell. — William Shakespeare

Is it thy will, thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenor of thy jealousy?
O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake:
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watchman ever for thy sake:
For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
From me far off, with others all too near. — William Shakespeare

The deep of night is crept upon our talk,
And Nature must obey necessity. — William Shakespeare

I have almost forgotten the taste of fears: The time has been, my senses would have cool'd to hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir as life were in't: I have supt full with horrors; Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, cannot once start me. — William Shakespeare