It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood.

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

I don’t do Shakespeare. I don’t talk in that kind of broken English.

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

Any good piece of material like Shakespeare ought to be open to reinterpretation.

Though she be but little, she is fierce.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.

I have no interest in Shakespeare and all that British nonsense… I just wanted to get famous and all the rest is hogwash.

You may be able to read Bernard Shaw’s plays, you may be able to quote Shakespeare or Voltaire or some new philosopher; but if you in yourself are not intelligent, if you are not creative, what is the point of this education?

If you had a million Shakespeares, could they write like a monkey?

I don’t like allegories.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

In designing the scenery and costumes for any of Shakespeare’s plays, the first thing the artist has to settle is the best date for the drama. This should be determined by the general spirit of the play more than by any actual historical references which may occur in it.

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

I kept writing not because I felt I was so good, but because I felt they were so bad, including Shakespeare, all those. The stilted formalism, like chewing cardboard.

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.

Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.

To be, or not to be, that is the question.

This above all; to thine own self be true.

The stroke of death is as a lover’s pinch, which hurts and is desired.

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

To be or not to be is not a question of compromise. Either you be or you don’t be.

If music be the food of love, play on.

I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind.

I must have read every issue of ‚Punch‘ published in the 20th century, and I think in the process I picked up the true voice of English humour – that amiable, fairly liberal, laconic voice which you find in something like ‚Three Men in a Boat.‘

Shakespeare – I was very influenced – still am – by Shakespeare. I couldn’t believe that a white man in the 16th century could so know my heart.

I’m not going to get into the ring with Tolstoy.

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

As he was valiant, I honour him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him.

Nothing can come of nothing.

Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.

Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.

I bear a charmed life.

In the theatre, people talk. Talk, talk until the cows come home about journeys of discovery and about what Hazlitt thought of a line of Shakespeare. I can’t stand it.

The course of true love never did run smooth.

Well, if Fortune be a woman, she’s a good wench for this gear.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.

Now is the winter of our discontent.

When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.

O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven; keep me in temper; I would not be mad!

I must be cruel, only to be kind.

People ask me if there are going to be stories of Harry Potter as an adult. Frankly, if I wanted to, I could keep writing stories until Harry is a senior citizen, but I don’t know how many people would actually want to read about a 65 year old Harry still at Hogwarts playing bingo with Ron and Hermione.

Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

Give thy thoughts no tongue.

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

Shakespeare didn’t work at all for me.

At Cornell University, my professor of European literature, Vladimir Nabokov, changed the way I read and the way I write. Words could paint pictures, I learned from him. Choosing the right word, and the right word order, he illustrated, could make an enormous difference in conveying an image or an idea.

The valiant never taste of death but once.

I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire.

The last act is bloody, however pleasant all the rest of the play is: a little earth is thrown at last upon our head, and that is the end forever.

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine is a sad one.

Love is too young to know what conscience is.

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.

‚Tis better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.

I am Warhol. I am the No. 1 most impactful artist of our generation. I am Shakespeare in the flesh.

Brevity is the soul of wit.