Shakespeare in Love/Quotes

"I will have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love. Love above all. No... not the artful postures of love, not playful and poetical games of love for the amusement of an evening, but love that... overthrows life. Unbiddable, ungovernable - like a riot in the heart, and nothing to be done, come ruin or rapture. Love - like there has never been in a play."

—Viola De Lesseps, to her Nurse.

Viola de Lesseps: (as Thomas Kent) Tell me how you love her, Will.
William Shakespeare: Like a sickness and its cure together.

Viola De Lesseps: I have never undressed a man before.
William Shakespeare: It is strange to me, too.

(Will and Violet have just had sex)
Viola De Lesseps: I would not have thought it: there IS something better than a play!
William Shakespeare: There is.
Viola De Lesseps: Even your play.
William Shakespeare: Hmm?
Viola De Lesseps: And that was only my first try.

William Shakespeare: I'm done with theater. The playhouse is for dreamers. Look what the dream brought us.
Viola De Lesseps: It was we ourselves did that. And for my life to come, I would not have it otherwise.

Philip Henslowe: The show must... you know...
William Shakespeare: (prompting him) Go on!

Lord Wessex: How is this to end?
Queen Elizabeth: As stories must when love's denied: with tears and a journey.

"My story starts at sea... a perilous voyage to an unknown land... a shipwreck... The wild waters roar and heave... The brave vessel is dashed all to pieces, and all the helpless souls within her drowned... all save one... a lady... whose soul is greater than the ocean... and her spirit stronger than the sea's embrace... Not for her a watery end, but a new life beginning on a stranger shore. It will be a love story... for she will be my heroine for all time. And her name will be... Viola."

—William Shakespeare (last lines)