Now a Protestant confronting a Catholic ghost is exactly Shakespeare's way of grappling with what was not simply a general social problem but one lived out in his own life.
Stephen Greenblatt

Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations.
Orson Welles

On the streets, unrequited love and death go together almost as often as in Shakespeare.
Scott Turow

One day, out of irritation, I said, you know all of those years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, all those years of playing kings and princes and speaking black verse, and bestriding the landscape of England was nothing but a preparation for sitting in the captain's chair of the Enterprise.
Patrick Stewart

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

People have known of Shakespeare's homosexuality down through the ages.
George Weinberg

Peter Hall was just organizing the Royal Shakespeare Company. It was going to be an ensemble, it was going to be in repertory, it was going to have a home in London as well as in the Midlands, and all of those things were happening at that time.
Trevor Nunn

Prior to Wordsworth, humor was an essential part of poetry. I mean, they don't call them Shakespeare comedies for nothing.
William Collins

Read not Milton, for he is dry; nor Shakespeare, for he wrote of common life.
Charles Stuart Calverley

Shakespeare also introduces the supernatural into some of his tragedies; he introduces ghosts, and witches who have supernatural knowledge.
Andrew Coyle Bradley

Shakespeare doesn't really write subtext, you play the subtext.
Gary Oldman

Shakespeare fascinated me. He hardly ever left the country. His imagination was worldwide though reading.
Michael Tippett

Shakespeare has no answers for us at all.
Edward Bond

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.
Anita Diament

Shakespeare is like mother's milk to me.
John Lithgow

Shakespeare is one of the last books one should like to give up, perhaps the one just before the Dying Service in a large Prayer book.
Charles Lamb

Shakespeare is the happy hunting ground of all minds that have lost their balance.
James Joyce

Shakespeare is the one who gets re-interpreted most frequently.
Sam Waterston

Shakespeare is the outstanding example of how that can be done. In all of Shakespeare's plays, no matter what tragic events occur, no matter what rises and falls, we return to stability in the end.
Charlton Heston

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.
Harold Bloom