Keats himself spoke about how Shakespeare was capable of erasing himself completely from the characters he had created. As an actor, that is what I’m trying to do. – Ben Whishaw
I have no interest in Shakespeare and all that British nonsense… I just wanted to get famous and all the rest is hogwash. – Anthony Hopkins
In my mind’s eye, Shakespeare is a huge, hot sea-beast, with fire in his veins and ice on his claws and inscrutable eyes, who looks like an inchoate hump under the encrustations of live barnacle-commentaries, limpets and trailing weeds. – A. S. Byatt
Sometimes I just crave to play in Shakespeare again and I know and love playing Orlando so much. – Basil Rathbone
What Shakespeare and the Greeks were able to do was radically question what it meant to be a human being. – Edward Bond
Why is the public so interested in movies about the wealthy? My answer is that Shakespeare wrote about kings. That’s where the action is. And it’s the classic, cathartic thing. You get to indulge in a lifestyle you’re not part of, a tragic error leads to a downfall, and you get to say, ‘Thank God I’m not him.’ – Nicholas Jarecki
It’s amazing how, age after age, in country after country, and in all languages, Shakespeare emerges as incomparable. – M. H. Abrams
The anti-apartheid prisoners on the island, like so many in every age and nation, found that Shakespeare had a peculiar ability to gentle their condition. They used to gather clandestinely to read the plays; on one occasion, the book was passed around for each man to mark his favourite lines. – Daniel Hannan
When I was a teenager, I continued to visit imaginary places by spending all my free time at our local community theater. Whether I acted in a play or worked backstage, the world of Tennessee Williams or Shakespeare always seemed more real to me than the dreary life of high school. – Mary Pope Osborne
There is certainly no one ‘type’ of writer who deliberately draws on Shakespeare. In fact, there’s a strong argument that everyone writing in the English language is influenced by Shakespeare because, to a considerable degree, he shaped that language. – Matt Haig
A marvellous power of expression over language often distinguishes genius; but Shakespeare in his phrases seems independent of the bonds of language as of the bonds of metre. – George Edward Woodberry
I can imagine the writers of China, England and France, crippled and unsure of themselves when they feel that the ghosts of Confucius, Mencius, Chaucer and Shakespeare and Victor Hugo are looking over their shoulders. – F. Sionil Jose
For me, if Shakespeare was around today, he’d be writing screenplays – a big Hollywood movie. – Douglas Booth
William Shakespeare was a brilliant writer and he only wrote the truth. So, if I don’t believe it, I have to work really hard to see what that truth is so that I do; that’s the only way I can make it believable for the audience. – Condola Rashad
I had always wanted to retell a Shakespeare play. It was an ambition from college days. But in order to be able to do it… the circumstances in my life didn’t come together for a long time. – Chris Adrian
New fathers, political prisoners, traumatised presidential aides, resolute schoolboys, MEPs addressing unfriendly chambers – we all find that Shakespeare has magically anticipated our precise circumstances. How he was possible, I still don’t understand; but there isn’t a day I’m not grateful that he speaks to me in my own language. – Daniel Hannan
Sometimes you do feel a script that glows in your hand the moment you start reading it. By page four of Shakespeare in Love, I said, ‘I have to be in this movie.’ – Geoffrey Rush
I was emotional. I wanted to be taken seriously. I was pretty emo. I was reciting Shakespeare monologues when I was 10. I still know the whole ‘To be, or not to be…’ monologue, because I knew it when I was 10. – Constance Wu
At his heart, Shakespeare was a YA author. So many of his plays are set with high school-aged characters. He understood the passion, the confusion and drama that marks that life stage. – Eric Walters
If Shakespeare was around today I would ask him out to dinner. The only thing I don’t like about him is the way he did his hair. – Michelle Dockery
Historically, Macbeth is one of the greatest kings Scotland ever had. He was on the throne for 19 years, and he simply has this dreadful reputation because Shakespeare manipulated history for the benefit of James I, who was paying him to write the play to blacken Macbeth’s name. – David Hewson
To realize life in the abstract as noble or beautiful or humane, to set it forth so with radiance upon it, that is civilization in the arts. Shakespeare is the chief modern example of this supreme faculty of mankind. – George Edward Woodberry
In a very literal way, of course, Shakespeare did change the course of history: when it didn’t fit the plot he had in mind, he simply rewrote it. His English histories play fast and loose with chronology and fact to achieve the desired dramatic effect, re-ordering history even as it was then understood. – Neil MacGregor
From what I understand about Shakespeare – which isn’t a lot – there was no copyright law when he was writing. He sampled at will, and it wasn’t seen as a bad thing. – Mike Posner
Dramatic fiction – William Shakespeare made his biggest mark writing dramatic love stories. – Nicholas Sparks