Orsino Twelfth Night Quotes

Where lies your text? Viola: In Orsino's bosom. Olivia: In his bosom! In what chapter of his bosom? Viola: To answer by the method, in the first of his heart.

Viola to Duke Orsino: 'I'll do my best To woo your lady.' [Aside.] 'Yet, a barful strife! Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife.

But when in other habits you are seen –   Orsino’s mistress, and his fancy’s queen!

APART. Such a simple concept. So concrete. So easy to represent on charts or diagrams with dots and pushpins either in or out. Yet real life is not dots. Some of us appear to be in, but we are out. And that is where we want to be. Not just want but need, the way tuna need the sea. Simple: an orientation, not just a choice. A fact. To paraphrase that Boston song, more than a feeling. We are loners. Which means we are at our best, as Orsino says in Twelfth Night, when least in company.