Hamlet quotes:

+1
Share
Pin
Like
Send
Share
  • Sibling relationships are complicated. All family relationships are. Look at Hamlet. -- Maurice Saatchi
  • I'm as happy doing 'Postman Pat' as I am doing 'Hamlet.' -- David Tennant
  • There have been more books alone written about Hamlet than have been written about the Bible. -- Mark Rylance
  • Would Hamlet have felt the delicious fascination of suicide if he hadn't had an audience, and lines to speak? -- Jean Genet
  • The essential is to excite the spectators. If that means playing Hamlet on a flying trapeze or in an aquarium, you do it. -- Orson Welles
  • The actor is too prone to exaggerate his powers; he wants to play Hamlet when his appearance is more suitable to King Lear. -- Sarah Bernhardt
  • 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. -- Kenneth Branagh
  • Of course 'Hamlet' is a debate about the nature and morality of revenge and whether it is right to do something to assuage your angry feelings. -- Samuel West
  • If you were to ask everyone what 'Hamlet' was about, they might say, "It's about a prince, and he says, 'To be or not to be.'" -- Orlando Bloom
  • Romeo is the most misunderstood character in literature, I think. He's hardcore to play because he's displaying the characteristics of Hamlet at the beginning, and, well, then everything else happens. -- Alan Cumming
  • Five billion people have played Hamlet. 'To be or not to be.' And how do you do that and find your way into your own journey, your own way of telling it? -- Annette Bening
  • I've seen 'Hamlet' many times, and Hamlet, he was just a hideous neurotic; he never changes. He doubts - all the way to the end, all the way until when he dies, he doubts. -- Alejandro Jodorowsky
  • I don't think of 'Macbeth' as the villain. I don't think of 'King Lear' as the villain. I don't think of 'Hamlet' as the villain. I don't think of 'Travis Bickle' as the villain. -- Damien Chazelle
  • What 'War and Peace' is to the novel and 'Hamlet' is to the theater, Swan Lake' is to ballet - that is, the name which to many people stands for and sums up an art form. -- Robert Gottlieb
  • And I just think that to introduce an unknown Shakespeare is thrilling, too - not to do Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet, to do the richer Shakespeare. People will come to this and not know the story. -- Julie Taymor
  • I'm not saying that Sam J. Jones was Flash Gordon - there's no such thing. No actor can be the person, that's a bunch of crap. People pay to see an actor be himself, whether he plays Hamlet or whatever. -- Sam J. Jones
  • I not only loved studying theater, I loved being a theater major. It gave me an excuse to brood, to grow a beard, to wear black 'at' people. I didn't just want to play Hamlet, I wanted to be Hamlet. -- Stephen Colbert
  • You have to get through the Hamlet hoop as a young actor. Your classical qualifications are based on the quality of your Hamlet. And then, as an older actor, you have to get through the Lear hoop. And I'm approaching the Lear hoop. -- Derek Jacobi
  • Most people don't know that I am an accomplished dramatic actor... But I've performed in several Shakespeare productions including Hamlet, except in this version, Hamlet lives in an apartment with two women, and has to pretend he's gay so that the landlord won't evict him. -- John Ritter
  • I'm on the list that I thought I'd never be on. I'm not sitting here thinking, 'God, I might get this part' or 'is it too late for me to play Hamlet?' It's really about: who do I get to work with? There's so many people on that list. -- Joel Edgerton
  • Hamlet got a gun now. -- Nick Cave
  • To each our own Hamlet. -- Jasper Fforde
  • Hamlet is a little daunting. -- Kyle MacLachlan
  • Be patient, Ophelia. Love, Hamlet -- Kurt Vonnegut
  • Hamlet is an astonishing intelligence. -- Ben Kingsley
  • You have to learn the language of Hamlet. -- Edward Bond
  • I've done classical theaters. I played Hamlet myself and Romeo. -- Damian Lewis
  • If I ever play Hamlet, it'll be in a dress! -- Matt Lucas
  • Most people don't see Hamlet as an old bald guy. -- Joss Whedon
  • I would rather play Hamlet with no rehearsal than TV golf. -- Jack Lemmon
  • Hamlet has been played by 5,000 actors, no wonder he is crazy. -- H. L. Mencken
  • --
  • I played Hamlet, I played Chekhov and Ibsen and all the classics. -- Harvey Korman
  • Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death the memory be green. -- William Shakespeare
  • Schopenhauer has analysed the pessimism that characterize modern thought, but Hamlet invented it -- Oscar Wilde
  • Who is more real? Homer or Ulysses? Shakespeare or Hamlet? Burroughs or Tarzan? -- Robert A. Heinlein
  • I think Hamlet is a very funny play - Hamlet is riddled with wit. -- Chukwudi Iwuji
  • I ask myself more questions than Hamlet as I ponder which shoes to wear -- Eva Gabor
  • What if Shakespeare had had a test audience for Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet? -- Brendan Fraser
  • You'd never play Hamlet if you started worrying about who's played it before you. -- Matthew Macfadyen
  • There's something rotten in the state of Denmark, and Hamlet says...it's payback time! -- Jasper Fforde
  • Quebec from the boat looked like the ramparts where Hamlet's ghost might have walked. -- Charlie Chaplin
  • Hamlet at 70: "To sleep, perchance to dream. To awaken, perchance to go to the bathroom." -- Robert Breault
  • Macbeth is contending with the realities of this world, Hamlet with those of the next. -- Jones Very
  • The neurotic thinks himself both Hamlet and Claudius, in a world that belongs to Polonius. -- Mignon McLaughlin
  • Lord Bacon could as easily have created the planets as he could have written Hamlet. -- Thomas Carlyle
  • Leonardo is the Hamlet of art history whom each of us must recreate for himself. -- Kenneth Clark
  • I took the role of Ophelia in Hamlet because she is so naive, loving, and innocent. -- Julia Stiles
  • Critchley and Webster's fierce, witty exploration of Hamlet makes most other writing about Shakespeare seem simpleminded. -- Hari Kunzru
  • There are three thing in the world I love most: the sea, Hamlet, and Don Giovanni. -- Gustave Flaubert
  • The two greatest plays ever written were Hamlet and Oedipus Rex, and they're both about father-son relationships. -- Arthur Miller
  • Shakespeare without Othello, Lear, Macbeth and Hamlet would be all too much like Hamlet without the prince. -- Brand Blanshard
  • I'm just an entertainer. All I want to be is funny. I never aspired to play Hamlet. -- Danny Kaye
  • Shakespeare's 'Othello' was inspired by Cinthio's 'A Moorish Captain'; his 'Hamlet' came from Saxo Grammaticus's 'Amleth.' -- Malorie Blackman
  • I turned Hamlet down because it was going to take up too much of my drinking time. -- Richard Harris
  • I don't think Hamlet is mad, nor is he predisposed to be a gloomy or tragic figure. -- Kenneth Branagh
  • This guy (Marlon Brando) - he'll be doing Hamlet when the rest of us are selling potatoes. -- Humphrey Bogart
  • I've played Hamlet and Coriolanus, Orlando in 'As You like It' and Ariel in 'Tempest,' among others. -- Christian Camargo
  • --
  • To paraphrase Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear, and all those guys, "I wish I had known this some time ago. -- Roger Zelazny
  • I saw Hamlet Prince of Denmark played; but now the old plays begin to disgust this refined age. -- John Evelyn
  • To paraphrase Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear, and all those guys, I wish I had known this some time ago. -- Roger Zelazny
  • Most actors are either a shower of bloody scruffs or think they should dress like Hamlet off stage. -- Martin Freeman
  • Born to play? Hmmm. Probably Romeo... or Hamlet, I guess. Also, I'd be a great Alexander the Great. -- David Carradine
  • If 'Hamlet' had been written in these days it would probably have been called 'The Strange Affair at Elsinore. -- James M. Barrie
  • We need more bodies, 'cause it's not looking enough like the last scene in Hamlet already. --Chopper Jim Chopin -- Dana Stabenow
  • The stage can be defined as a place where Shakespeare murdered Hamlet and a great many Hamlets murdered Shakespeare. -- Robert Morse
  • Hamlet is every man's self-love with all its dreams realized. He wears all the crowns and carries every cross. -- Hugh Kingsmill
  • If you haven't read Shakespeare's Hamlet yet, it means that you haven't reached the summit of the literature yet! -- Mehmet Murat ildan
  • As Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, had said in Shakespeare's immortal words, 'I must be cruel only to be kind. -- Pranab Mukherjee
  • If you decide to do Hamlet in a funny hat staged in a ruined factory, it doesn't make you Shakespeare. -- William Monahan
  • I had to kiss it [ playing Hamlet] goodbye because Marvel have to plot things for the next three, four years. -- Benedict Cumberbatch
  • Hamlet is egotism as it appears to itself, and Don Quixote is egotism as it appears to the detached observer. -- Hugh Kingsmill
  • Doing Shakespeare in the Park has always been a dream. Everyone else says Hamlet, but I want to play Romeo. -- Aaron Yoo
  • Hamlet: Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? Ophelia: 'Tis brief, my lord. Hamlet: As woman's love. -- William Shakespeare
  • I look forward to the day when indigenous actors can play Hamlet and Ophelia and not just Othello and Desdemona. -- Shari Sebbens
  • From the wrestling of his own soul with the great enemy, comes that depth and mystery which startles us in Hamlet. -- Jones Very
  • Said Hamlet to Ophelia, I'll draw a sketch of thee. What kind of pencil shall I use? 2B or not 2B? -- Spike Milligan
  • I have no desire to play King Lear or Hamlet. I never had a grand ambition. I just followed my nose. -- Liam Neeson
  • I had a good theater career for years. I played Hamlet when I was 22, and I've played some really great roles. -- Jason Gann
  • The only way to find the best actor would be to let everybody play Hamlet and let the best man win. -- Humphrey Bogart
  • There are a thousand ways of playing a good classic. If it were effective, I would play Hamlet on a trapeze. -- Orson Welles
  • A brilliant treatment of the history of Purgatory in England and its survivals and echoes throughout Shakespeare's plays, above all Hamlet. -- Carol Zaleski
  • I didn't realize you needed a response. When Hamlet is giving a monologue, he just goes on and on by himself. -- Eloisa James
  • Doing nothing was as honourable as any available course of action. Think of Hamlet, think of Job, think of Jesus before Pilate. -- Johnny Rich
  • The playbill, which is said to have announced the tragedy of Hamlet, the character of the Prince of Denmark being left out. -- Walter Scott
  • I find it easier to believe in God than to believe Hamlet was deduced from the molecular structure of a mutton chop. -- William F. Buckley, Jr.
  • You don't really audition for Hamlet; Hamlet is one of those roles that a director or producer decides you should do it. -- Chukwudi Iwuji
  • Shakespeare is in many ways an African writer and 'Hamlet' would be seen as a very accurate historical saga about an African kingdom. -- Henning Mankell
  • Who wants to see me as Hamlet? Very few. But millions want to see me as Frankenstein so that's the one I do. -- Peter Cushing
  • I am haunted by the ghost of my father, I think that should allow me to quote Hamlet as much as I please. -- Erin Morgenstern
  • We want to do for 'Hamlet' what Baz Luhrmann did for 'Romeo and Juliet' in terms of like a really cool kind of re-imagining. -- Emile Hirsch
  • To be honest, as this world goes is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.Hamlet Act II, Scene II Lines 178-179 -- William Shakespeare
  • Hamlet, that's the only role there is, finally. The only role. After that, you settle down and only do the fun things on stage. -- Stephen Lang
  • There is a kitsch of death. For example, death transformed into sweet sleep: The 'good night, sweet prince' of the last scene of Hamlet. -- Saul Friedlander
  • You can't automate in the arts. Since the sixteenth century there has been no change in the number of people necessary to produce Hamlet. -- William T. Wiley
  • Digression is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones. -- Ray Bradbury
  • Could Hamlet have been written bya committee, or the Mona Lisa painted by a club? Could the NewTestament have been composed as a conference report? -- Alfred Whitney Griswold
  • When it's a minor or supporting role, you learn to make the most of what you're given. I can make two lines seem like Hamlet. -- Denholm Elliott
  • Hamlet and Victor Frankenstein are each obsessed with death. Hamlet's whole story is a philosophical preparation for death; Victor's is an intellectual refusal to accept it. -- Kenneth Branagh
  • For, let's face it, digression is the soul of wit. Take philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones. -- Ray Bradbury
  • Hamlet' is obviously a role a lot of actors want to portray or be involved with in some way and that I'd like to be involved in. -- Jamie Campbell Bower
  • But what if Shakespeare"? and Hamlet"? were asking the wrong question? What if the real question is not whether to be, but how to be? -- Gayle Forman
  • Hamlet, Kiekegaard, Kafka are ironists in the wake of Jesus. All Western irony is a repetition of Jesus' enigmas/riddles, in amalgam with the ironies of Socrates. -- Harold Bloom
  • I don't admire Freud as much as some people do. Imagine Shakespeare being aware of the Oedipal complex when he wrote Hamlet. It would have been a disaster. -- Nathalie Sarraute
  • Some people consider the way Shakespeare was writing about Ophelia as erotomania-that she was delusional in thinking that Hamlet was in love with her. But I don't think so. -- Jack White
  • I'm not in the advertising business, but I think it would be very nice if people went to see the film Hamlet, because it was made with love and integrity. -- Julie Christie
  • Many actors want to play Hamlet and Macbeth. Ever since I became an actor, from the very beginning I just wanted to play a Shetland pony. I cannot explain why -- Dustin Hoffman
  • As Hamlet tells his friend, ``There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'' Well then, we must try harder to dream! -- Gregory Chaitin
  • The thing that I had saved up for myself and wanted most to bring off was a fully fledged professional production of Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Theater in Stratford. -- Trevor Nunn
  • I think part of the sadness of Hamlet is given different circumstances, this guy had the capability of being something really great and not ending up poisoned on the ground. -- Chukwudi Iwuji
  • I'm not in the advertising business, but I think it would be very nice if people went to see the film Hamlet, because it was made with love and integrity -- Julie Christie
  • No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be: am an attendant lord, one that will do to swell a progress, start a scene or two, advise the prince. -- T. S. Eliot
  • I was so scared of going back to the theatre after 'Hamlet.' I didn't know if I'd do a play again because I was afraid of the power of it. -- Alan Cumming
  • I don't make much distinction between being a stand-up comic and acting Shakespeare - in fact, unless you're a good comedian, you're never going to be able to play Hamlet properly. -- Ian Mckellen
  • he looked to her like an absurd twentieth-century Hamlet, an indecisive figure so mesmerized by onrushing tragedy that he was helpless to divert its course or alter it in any way. -- Stephen King
  • A guy comes home from college to find his mother sleeping with his uncle, and there's a ghost running around. Write it good, it's Hamlet; write it bad, it's Gilligan's Island. -- Lorne Michaels
  • Both Brutus and Hamlet are highly intellectual by nature and reflective by habit. Both may even be called, in a popular sense, philosophic; Brutus may be called so in a stricter sense. -- Andrew Coyle Bradley
  • I like drama as well. When I played Hamlet, I got one review that said, "This must surely be the funniest Hamlet in history," but schoolgirls would still cry when he died. -- Jason Gann
  • My Hamlet was about as alienated as you can get. Mine was a bitter and lonely prince. Valid, I think, but maybe tough to root for. I think that romance was missing. -- Stephen Lang
+1
Share
Pin
Like
Send
Share