Shakespeare Quotes

I feel like any single woman of color who's been onstage has a Shakespeare monologue in her back pocket, and a monologue from 'For Colored Girls.' It's just part of what you should have, as a woman of color.

It is no exaggeration to say that the English Bible is, next to Shakespeare, the greatest work in English literature, and that it will have much more influence than even Shakespeare upon the written and spoken language of the English race.

Was there ever such stuff as great as part of Shakespeare? Only one must not say so! But what think you? - What? - Is there not sad stuff? What? - What?

Shakespeare in Love... such smart writing of an alternative view of history, and such beautiful acting. Like most Americans, I'm a sucker for the accent.

I did do some Shakespeare on film, it's really difficult. It's really interesting, because I was doing a series in Canada called 'Slings and Arrows' and it was about a company based around the Stratford Festival.

Every time I do a movie like 'Finding Neverland' or 'Chocolat' or 'Shakespeare' in Love,' we deal with the creative process, but there's humor and fun along the way. I always love that kind of movie.

But if Shakespeare himself is maybe about meaning and truth, I don't know, then he is certainly about pleasure and interest, we start with pleasure and interest, but maybe eventually it gets to meaning and truth.

The English people, a lot of them, would not be able to understand a word of spoken Shakespeare. There are people who do and I'm not denying they exist. But it's a far more philistine country than people think.

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

Shakespeare and his work will always be relevant. He wrote those pieces hundreds of years ago and we haven't really changed as humans, have we? We have to deal with love, honour and adultery now - people were the same then, too - that's what's so wonderful and powerful.

Shakespeare's idea of the tragic fact is larger than this idea and goes beyond it; but it includes it, and it is worth while to observe the identity of the two in a certain point which is often ignored.

One of the things that makes Hamlet unique among Shakespeare's characters is his courage to face up to the darker elements of his personality.

I think Shakespeare is really the one. Words as music and music as words. Everything he wrote was good, which is really frightening.

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.

An actor should be ready to play any role within reason. For example, I think the most ridiculous thing for me to do would be to try and play Shakespeare.

In speaking, for convenience, of devices and expedients, I did not intend to imply that Shakespeare always deliberately aimed at the effects which he produced.

It's a perfectly valid position to not like Shakespeare.

What Shakespeare and the Greeks were able to do was radically question what it meant to be a human being.

Find enough clever things to say, and you're a Prime Minister; write them down and you're a Shakespeare.

The only line that's wrong in Shakespeare is 'holding a mirror up to nature.' You hold a magnifying glass up to nature. As an actor you just enlarge it enough so that your audience can identify with the situation. If it were a mirror, we would have no art.

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 is the true multicultural author. He exists in all languages. He is put on the stage everywhere. Everyone feels that they are represented by him on the stage.

I have grown up loving Shakespeare.

I'd like people to remember me for a diligent expert workman. I think a poet is a workman. I think Shakespeare was a workman. And God's a workman. I don't think there's anything better than a workman.

Shakespeare lets us see real people undergoing real processes, with real feelings.

I remain loyal to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert in music and to Shakespeare and Jane Austen in literature.

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.

I don't know, I'd love to try some theater. That's my other thing. I'd love to do some Shakespeare.

The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.

I cannot understate the ability to handle classical texts such as Shakespeare.