Lear Quotes

Shakespeare without Othello, Lear, Macbeth and Hamlet would be all too much like Hamlet without the prince.

I think Shakespeare got drunk after he finished King Lear. That he had a ball writing it.

King Lear is undoubtedly the greatest play ever written by Shakespeare - or anybody else for that matter. Hamlet is certainly great, but it doesn't contain as many elements of humanity as we see in Lear.

Norman Lear considers almost any Christian who speaks up for and acts on his or her faith to be 'dangerous.'

I would love to be remembered as one of the greatest Lears or Hamlets.

Twins are under-represented in the media. Hamlet - never twins. Hamlet Twins Of Denmark. King And Queen Lear. It would work. Come on, more twins on television.

In a very real way Norman [Lear] godfathered me into my career. He was the best mentor anybody could have ever had.

Michael Moore's first big film "Roger & Me" has an extremely powerful scene in which a family in Flint, Michigan is evicted right around Christmas. That was an inspiration to me to document the stories of people living on the edge as they're happening. My aim in "A House Divided" was to explore the urgent challenges of housing inequity in New York through the eyes of Norman Lear.

I do not see how it is possible for an intelligent human being to conclude that the Song of Solomon is the work of God, and that the tragedy of Lear was the work of an uninspired man.

I've played Lear three times, I would love to do it again.

The good parts are the people who don't make do. They're the interesting people. Lear doesn't make do.

I feel like I've been on EastEnders all my life and now I'm playing King Lear.

When I closed in "King Lear" I went into a period of depression for about three weeks, and every actor I've talked to who's ever played a major, major Shakespeare role has done this.

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.

To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.

The quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself

He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf.

Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.

The rain, it raineth every day.

I am a man more sinned against than sinning

Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.

No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

The art of our necessities is strange That can make vile things precious.

And worse I may be yet: the worst is not So long as we can say 'This is the worst.

A laughing Lear would be monstrous. Not so a laughing Romeo and Juliet.

Oh, that way madness lies; let me shun that.

Novels are routinely denigrated when characters are not found to be likable. Is Raskolnikov likable? Is King Lear? The plethora of such naive readers testifies to a failure of imagination - the capacity to see into unfamiliar lives, motives, feelings - and this failure must, at least in part, be the failure of the teaching of literature in the schools.

I think that's an important part of art in general. Especially in literature, in stories, we play with eventualities that may put us through a lot of intense negative feelings - say, in horror films or tragedies as intense as King Lear - but we come out feeling richer. We've lived to the fullest, we've tested ourselves in these environments.

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

When I was growing up my favorite show was 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show', and I loved all the stuff that Norman Lear did.

Pray you now, forget and forgive.

As I get older and I get a few more years experience I become more like Dad, you know, King Lear.

The weight of this sad time we must obey, Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman.

We are not the first Who with best meaning have incurred the worst

Time shall unfold what plaited cunning hides: Who cover faults, at last shame them derides.

Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave My heart into my mouth.

Allow not nature more than nature needs.

We make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villians by compulsion.

This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.

Thou whoreson zed! Thou unnecessary letter! My lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar, and daub the wall of a jakes with him. *all cheer for Shakespearean insults*

I have full cause of weeping, but this heart shall break into a hundred thousand flaws or ere I'll weep.

I have no way and therefore want no eyes I stumbled when I saw. Full oft 'tis seen our means secure us, and our mere defects prove our commodities.

Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou ow'st the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Here's three on's are sophisticated. Thou art the thing itself; unaccommodated man is no more than such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.

If it be you that stirs these daughters' hearts Against their father, fool me not so much To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger, And let not women's weapons, water drops, Stain my man's cheeks.

I walk into office, which is the casting office for CBS in New York. Mainly what they cast out of this office was the CBS daytime shows. I go in and walk into this room which every seat is filled with young African-American boys and girls and they were in their teens. I went, "I'm in the wrong place. Why am I here? What's going on?"So I go in and meet Norman [Lear].

In my school, the library was forbidden. I was accused of turning on the radiator so that the [class]room was uninhabitable and the ceiling came down below; I'm pretty sure I didn't do it. But then we were moved to the library. And there was a really boring history thing, about the Spanish Armada: how could you make that boring?!So I reached my hand out, and slid a book off to read under the desk, and it opened at King Lear Act Four Scene Six. I was astounded. I'd never seen language like it. I was awestruck. I think that may be one reason why I got involved in theatre.

Theater roles are written by the great masters. The greatest literature that you can possibly know are the theater roles like King Lear, Hamlet, and all of those great roles. So all you do is you dive into these unchallenged roles and see how far you can get, what kind of accolades you can get, and how good you can be in them. In movie roles, you can actually improve them by knowing a lot about your own stage technique, which helps a great deal in the cinema and how you can project inner humor even though the particular dialogue is not necessarily funny, but you can infuse it with humor.

The only acceptable way to solve ecological problems is if you can persuade people to have fewer children. In the Victorian times, there were families of 15 children. Someone like Edward Lear, he was the last of 21 children. And so what we have to think about is offering people the alternative choice. And in the West, that's what's happening. The birth rate has been dropping steadily and still is. I'm wanting human beings to be better off so they don't view children as an insurance for the future.

All's well that ends well.