William ShakespeareIf you want to be a writer, and speak to others and for others, speak first for yourself. Search within. Consider the contents of your own soul. Your humanity. And if you're honest with yourself, then whatever you write, all is true.
William ShakespeareI don't have a favorite play, I admire all my fellow dramatists equally, and yes, I do think women should be allowed to perform the female roles as is the practice on the continent. Now, please do excuse me.
William ShakespeareWhat on earth are you doing here? Now, here's what I need you not to pee on. This is what you don't pee on, and this is what you don't pee on here.
Anne ShakespeareThis isn't London. If you miss church here, they'll fine you.
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Maria, Shakespeare's MaidA garden ain't a play.
William ShakespeareYes, but play, garden, *loaf* - like the ones you bake every morning, all of them begin with an idea from a compulsion to create something of beauty or of need.
Maria, Shakespeare's MaidBread begins with yeast and flour.
William ShakespeareExactly! Ingredients. Now you're getting me. Bushes, brambles, yeast, flour versus players, and they all need a dream which will not be denied, and which must weather all kinds of adversity because the weather will turn, the bugs will infest, the oven will cool, the yeast will sour, and in my case, your fellow workers, heh, like a brilliant lunatic actor called Dick Burbage, will interfere, and they will demand a bigger show for a smaller budget, and a shorter play with a much longer part for him, and all of these trials must be overcome without ever losing sight of the dream itself.
Maria, Shakespeare's MaidAnd what does it feel like when all of that works?
Judith ShakespeareThat's funny, isn't it? A Puritan who wants to close all the theaters, who'll get all of William Shakespeare's estate? Well, don't you think that's funny? I think that's funny.
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John HallI joy to see you dig, sir. At last, given up on your plays to distract the mob from our Lord.
William ShakespeareAnne, those sonnets were published illegally without my knowledge or my consent.
Anne ShakespeareBut you wrote them, Will, and people read them. And after they'd read them, they kept asking, "Who are they? Who is this dark lady he's so in love with?"
Anne ShakespeareDon't answer. I don't want to know. I didn't want to know then, and I don't want to know now. But I know who some people said he was. Now it appears he's coming to my house a-calling. All these years, Will, worried about your reputation. Have you even once considered mine?
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Earl of SouthamptonBooze and passion, sex and violence killed them all. Life killed them.
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Susanna HallIf Judith is reaching for a little happiness, then I'm glad of it.
John HallSinning will not make her happy.
Susanna HallReally? Then let us hope it makes her unhappiness a little more bearable.
John HallThat is a wicked thing to say. Remember your scripture.
Earl of SouthamptonAs a poet, you have no equal, and I, like anyone with brain or heart, am your humble servant.
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Anne ShakespeareRemember our wedding day? Me, older, pregnant, and you a strange, clever lad of 18. I know what people thought. I couldn't even sign the register. Just made a stupid mark. I felt so foolish. Then you went to London and became this great writer, with a wife at home who couldn't read a word. I often wondered if it bothered you. But why should it? You were hardly here.
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Tom QuineyYou know that I am not a good man. There have been women. Many women.
Judith ShakespeareLook, I've seen too little of life. You've seen too much. But perhaps together we may begin again.
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Ben Jonsonthe second part is the best part. You made it home, Will. How many other conquerors can say the same? What poets, huh? Anyone can die alone and despised.
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Ben JonsonYou told me that Southampton says you've led a little life. What an ass. Well, I mean, you conquered England, Will, and returned victorious to the bosom of your family. Ah, how is that little? Is it little?
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Ben JonsonChrist, Will, you've had a time of it. Both daughters caught up in scandals. Well, good for them.
William ShakespeareYes, retirement hasn't exactly brought the peace we might have hoped for.
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Ben JonsonNo one knows how Tom Nashe died, but if his filthy dildo poems are anything to go by, it wasn't in the bosom of his family.
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William ShakespeareWhenever I trim a new quill, I imagine that it's not mine, but his hand, grown to be a man, and there he is, trimming - trimming his quill with the knife his father gave him on that joyful homecoming so long ago. And then, when I, uh, when I dip the ink and make a mark, it's still his hand I see and his words that I write, and then I imagine that it's not me who thinks of him at all, but that I am dead and Hamnet lives, and it's him who thinks of me.
William ShakespeareMy guess is to damage her husband. John Hall is a Puritan, and he would make Holy Trinity and all the town likewise. John Lane, on the other hand, likes his cakes and ale.
Earl of SouthamptonI have grown old. As you said in your sonnets that I would, you bastard. But the beauty I inspired in you will be forever young. And in a thousand years from now, when people read those lines, I will - will be young, alive still, in the hearts of lovers yet unborn.
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Earl of SouthamptonWhat is he? The son of a son. Nothing more. All his pride and strut comes from no greater achievement than having been spat from the dick of a previous nonentity.
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William ShakespeareI thought you meant real business. Like building, owning and operating London's largest theater, for instance. Actors, carpenters, seamstresses, crew to pay, bribes to pay, security to mount, politics to navigate, 3,000 paying customers to be fed and watered every afternoon, each promised a spectacle greater than the last. One hundred and seventy Royal Command Performances for our Queen and our King. Have you considered the logistics of mounting the Battle of Shrewsbury in the banqueting hall at Hampton Court? Please don't. It would make you so tired. And yet, in all the years that I have run my vast, complex and spectacularly successful business, Thomas, I have indeed found the time to think and to write down the pretty thoughts you mention and which, in my experience, bring immense pleasure to those who seek mere diversion or respite from this veil of tears, without which, it would all be about as pointless as - well, about as pointless as you, Sir Thomas.