Quotes About Shakespeare

If Shakespeare thought comedy worthwhile, that means the rest of us can take a break from tragedy now and then without betraying our calling, even if the modern professional intellectual, a poseur by nature, has yet to discover this.

There are so few who are men worthy of praise in this dreadful life: Mr. McMahon is one who immediately comes to mind; Billy Shakespeare is another, Bob Barker, god rest his soul - wait, he's not passed yet has he? Drat, take that one off, I suppose.

From the early days of the Raj, Shakespeare had been woven into the fabric of India's education, and my father understood that in a culture rich with storytelling and fantastical tales, Shakespeare's characters and storylines resonated in a powerful way.

I started in Shakespeare. I'm classically trained, which, how hilarious is that? Then one night, I saw Second City and thought, 'Wow, that's what I want to do.' But I never thought it would morph into screenplay writing.

The trap in Hamlet is he's the most passive of Shakespeare's characters. He's not a Richard III, not out there taking a lot of action. It's a lot of asides and soliloquies where he's wrapped in angst, and that's not a very interesting character.

The reason that I'm a writer today is because of Shakespeare and falling in love with Shakespeare when I was 8. That was through the movies, actually - through Olivier's 'Hamlet.' That was the first thing that got me to fall in love with Shakespeare and movies and everything in one big preadolescent rush.

No writer besides Shakespeare has created more memorable characters attached to vices and virtues. In even their least sympathetic characters, one senses a kind of helplessness to passion quivering between the poles of good and evil.

I'm lucky enough to work with, I think, the greatest writer there's ever been, Shakespeare. Whose collected works would always be under my pillow if I was only ever allowed one book to keep, and who never bores me.

By all means, let us study the great writers of the past for their own sakes, but let us study them for our guidance: that we, in our turn, having (it is to be hoped) something to say in our span of time, say it worthily, not dwindling out the large utterance of Shakespeare or of Burke.

I believe that writers have a responsibility to evolve the language, whether by introducing new words or new usages. Shakespeare alone is responsible for something like 3400 words and phrases.

I do believe, and I will always believe, that Shakespeare on film is really something that should be tried more often because it is an opportunity to take the humanity that Shakespeare writes into characters and express it.

I felt a little green, because Shakespeare writes the thought process within the text; it was tricky not to think of what to say and then say it, and instead just deliver the lines.

Shakespeare teaches you how to act. You come out of this process as a better actor. It's just the nature of the words he writes.

I think nobody since has written such extraordinary work as Shakespeare writes. The characters he writes are full of inconsistencies, which is a great human quality - I mean, we're all very inconsistent in the way we behave.

When Nash was ten, he asked his father what happens to us when we die. His father said that Shakespeare probably said it best, that death was "the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns." In sum, how can we know? The

I did a lot of Shakespeare touring when I was in college in Montana.

I should be soaring away with my head tilted slightly toward the gods, feeding on the caviar of Shakespeare. An actor must act.

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.

Shakespeare never had six lines together without a fault. Perhaps you may find seven, but this does not refute my general assertion.

People take England on trust, and repeat that Shakespeare is the greatest of all authors. I have read him: there is nothing that compares Racine or Corneille: his plays are unreadable, pitiful.

'Tis true 'tis pity And pity 'tis 'tis true.

Shakespeare might have said, we are "consumed with that with which we are nourished by.

The English language was spoken and written—but at the time of Shakespeare it was not defined, not fixed. It was like the air—it was taken for granted, the medium that enveloped and defined all Britons. But as to exactly what it was, what its components were—who knew?

In the sixteenth century in England, dictionaries such as we would recognize today simply did not exist. If the language that so inspired Shakespeare had limits, if its words had definable origins, spellings, pronunciations, meanings—then no single book existed that established them, defined them, and set them down.