If we wish to know the force of human genius we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning we may only study his commentators. [“On the Ignorance of the...

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: Sometimes too...

Julietă- Hău- Unde ești?- Nu îți spun- Dezdemona- Desigur- Vreau să te întreb ceva foarte important- Spune- Păi…- Atunci scrie- C t e ceasul?

Men from children nothing differ.

Alack, there lies more peril in thine eyeThan twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet,And I am proof against their enmity.

No temáis a la grandeza; algunos nacen grandes, algunos logran grandeza, a algunos la grandeza les es impuesta y a otros la grandeza les queda grande.

So, through all that early professional career I would occasionally do a musical, a pantomime or a play with songs. The next stop would be a Shakespeare, or an Ibsen, or a play by a...

Why should we place Christ at the top and summit of the human race? Was he kinder, more forgiving, more self-sacrificing than Buddha? Was he wiser, did he meet death with more perfect calmness, than...

No, I am thy father.

Here’s one of the problems with communicating in the words of a man who is not around to explain himself: it’s damn hard sometimes to tell what he was talking about. Look, the sheer fact...

I am haunted by the ghost of my father, I think that should allow me to quote Hamlet as much as I please.

I missed the good old days when phones were sturdy enough to be pounded for emphasis.

Oh, if Shakespeare says it, that’s all right.

England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare,but the Bible made England.

All that comes above the surface [of the globe] lies within the province of Geography; all that comes below that surface lies inside the realm of Geology. The surface of the earth is that which,...

[Thou] mad mustachio purple-hued maltworms!

She moves me not, or not removes at least affection’s edge in me.

This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other...

Well said, old mole!

Hang there like a fruit, my soul, Till the tree die!-Posthumus LeonatusAct V, Scene V

The ultimate paradox, of course, is that even though we’re all going to die, we’ve all got to live in the meantime…

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...

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.

No one yet has managed to be post-Shakespearean.

I have written about other worlds often enough. I have said what I can say. There are many kinds of reality. This is but one kind.

This house has enough nooks and crannies for English muffins.

There is a kind of gaping admiration that would fain roll Shakespeare and Bacon into one, to have a bigger thing to gape at; and a class of men who cannot edit one author without...

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They died together; they’ll always be remembered together. It’s decided, once and for all. He was hers.

Tax not so bad a voice to slander music any more than once.

To die, to sleep – To sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub,For in this sleep of death what dreams may come…

They lie deadly that tell you have good faces.

Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh,Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,Will even weigh, and both as light as tales.

More grief to hide than hate to utter love. Polonius, Hamlet.

Romeo was late. Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo… I snorted. It was so loud it startled a girl at a nearby table.- Rimmel

It is gaol that finally reveals to me the beauty of Shakespeare, the spirit in his words, the jaw-dropping audacity of his language.

Malone’s commentary on Sonnet 93 was a defining moment in the history not only of Shakespeare studies but also of literary biography in general. What has emerged in our time as a dominant form of...

Hamlet’s Cat’s Soliloquy”To go outside, and there perchance to stayOr to remain within: that is the question:Whether ’tis better for a cat to suffer The cuffs and buffets of inclement weatherThat Nature rains on those...

. . . when a woman has a husbandAnd you’ve got none,Why should she take advice from you?Even if you can quote Balzac and ShakespeareAnd all them other highfalutin’ Greeks.

You can’t go by what a girl says, when she’s giving you the devil for making a chump of yourself. It’s like Shakespeare. Sounds well, but doesn’t mean anything.

In the State of Denmark there was the odor of decay…

We occasionally see something on the stage that reminds us a littleof Shakespear. [Oct. 16, 1814, The Champion]

O serpent heart hid with a flowering face!Did ever a dragon keep so fair a cave?Beautiful tyrant, feind angelical, dove feather raven, wolvish-ravening lamb! Despised substance of devinest show, just opposite to what thou justly...

But, orderly to end where I begun:Our wills and fates do so contrary runThat our devices still are overthrown;Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.So think thou wilt no second husband wed,But...

How stand I, then,That have a father killed, a mother stained,Excitements of my reason and my blood,And let all sleep, while to my shame I seeThe imminent death of twenty thousand menThat for a fantasy...

By my soul I swear, there is no power in the tongue of man to alter me.

You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths’ wives and conned them out of rings?

Shakespeare said, ‘the robbed that smiles steals something from the thief.

Nay, Nay! Try thou not.But do thou or do thou not, For there is no “try.

When I read Shakespeare I am struck with wonder that such trivial people should muse and thunder in such lovely language.