Hamlet Quotes

• 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.

  

  Kurt Sutter
  • Character
  • Interesting
  • Action

• From the wrestling of his own soul with the great enemy, comes that depth and mystery which startles us in Hamlet.

  

  Jones Very
  • Great
  • Soul
  • Enemy

• I saw Derek Jacobi play Hamlet when I was 17, and he directed me as Hamlet when I was 27, and I directed him as Claudius in 'Hamlet' when I was 35, and I'm hoping we meet again in some other production of Hamlet before we both toddle off.

  

  Kenneth Branagh
  • Hamlet

• The purpose of all opprobrious language is, not to describe, but to hurt - even when, like Hamlet, we make only the shadow-passes of a soliloquised combat. We call the enemy not what we think he is but what we think he would least like to be called.

  

  C. S. Lewis
  • Thinking
  • Purpose
  • Hurt

• Usually, you see this play as a guy who can't make up his mind, but our version is more of a revenge thriller than a man who is pontificating what he should do next. I've never seen a 'Hamlet' this big, this exciting, with this many cast members; it's quite a spectacle.

  

  David Denman
  • Up
  • Mind
  • Guy

• John Kenneth Galbraith doesn't get enough praise. The Affluent Society is a great insight, and has become so much a part of our understanding of contemporary capitalism that we forget where it began. It's like reading Hamlet and deciding it's full of quotations.

  

  Amartya Sen
  • Great
  • Society
  • Reading

• Shakespeare was the main thing I did in my life from the age of 16 when I first played 'Hamlet' at school. I then did summer stock the next summer and then went to RADA and joined the RSC and ran my own company and then worked at the Globe. That was about 30 years of my life.

  

  Mark Rylance
  • Life
  • School
  • Age

• You can do 'Hamlet' while performing cartwheels... as long as the audience sees your eyes - you can make the performance real.

  

  James Dean
  • Long
  • Real
  • Eyes

• Hamlet got a gun now.

  

  Nick Cave The Birthday Party
  • Gun
  • Hamlet

• Few areas which are not publicly owned can boast as many footpaths as the Cuckmere Valley. For a short walk, a footbridge across the river leads back to the little hamlet of Milton Street, where another classic local pub, the Sussex Ox, provides an admirable lunch.

  

  David Hewson
  • River
  • Hamlet

• I'd love to play Hamlet.

  

  Janet McTeer
  • Hamlet

• As an artist, you're thankful to get a shot at a story more than once, because it doesn't happen all the time. Whether you talk about 'Hamlet' or 'Death of a Salesman,' you always want to see what the next group of actors will do.

  

  Kenny Leon
  • Time
  • Death
  • Thankful

• Most actors are either a shower of bloody scruffs or think they should dress like Hamlet off stage.

  

  Martin Freeman
  • Hamlet

• Let the gossip roll! What to me are Hamlet's garters, or the whirlwind of Salome's dance, or the tread of the Man in the Iron Mask? I am more iron than they.

  

  Anna Akhmatova
  • Dance
  • Gossip
  • Hamlet

• Anytime you create art, you create a mess. I mean, 'Hamlet' is a mess!

  

  George C. Wolfe
  • Art
  • Hamlet

• I've played Hamlet and Coriolanus, Orlando in 'As You like It' and Ariel in 'Tempest,' among others.

  

  Christian Camargo
  • Hamlet

• 'Hamlet' is so modern; 'Coriolanus' is utterly alien to our consciousness, and that makes it difficult for us.

  

  David Farr
  • Alien
  • Hamlet

• 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
  • Good
  • Great
  • Career

• I have never wanted to check out the family folklore that we could be traced back to a dominie at the hamlet of Balquhidder in the Scottish highlands.

  

  James Black
  • Family
  • Hamlet

• Every young actor wants to do 'Hamlet' on the West End. Why? Because they can bring something to it.

  

  Martin Landau
  • Why
  • Hamlet

• There have been more books alone written about Hamlet than have been written about the Bible.

  

  Mark Rylance
  • Alone
  • Bible
  • Hamlet

• Macbeth is contending with the realities of this world, Hamlet with those of the next.

  

  Jones Very
  • World
  • Hamlet

• For over ten years, bombs rained down on every village and hamlet in South Vietnam, and no one budged. It took the coming of a Communist 'peace' to send hundreds of thousands of people out into the South China Sea, on anything that could float, or might float, to risk dehydration, piracy, drowning . . .

  

  Vernon A. Walters
  • Hamlet
  • Village
  • South Vietnam

• I got into this thing called the National Youth Theatre, and to me, that was all about the status quo. It seemed to me like 'Downton Abbey' - all the working-class and black people were playing servants, or the gravedigger in 'Hamlet,' and the boys from Eton and posh private schools got Hamlet, all the big roles.

  

  DeObia Oparei
  • People
  • Black
  • Theatre

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