Shakespeare Funny Quotes

Thine face is not worth sunburning.

Thou mad mustachio purple-hued maltworms!

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes—and moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle’s.

Apparently the complete works of Shakespeare packed quite a wallop. To think, my mother said I'd never find use for an English degree. Ha! I'd like to see her knock someone silly with an apron and a cookie press.

Thou art a very ragged Wart.

How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath To say to me that thou art out of breath?

I want your body. I want your mouth. I want your red hair in my hands. I want your laugh and your funny faces. I want your friendship and your inspirational thoughts. I want Shakespeare and Amber Rose novels ... And I want you to come with me when I go.

The small amount of foolery wise men have makes a great show.

I remember the will said, 'May God thy gold refine.' That must be from the Bible." "Shakespeare," Turtle said. All quotations were either from the Bible or Shakespeare.

I will make thee think thy swan a crow.

To be, or not to be: what a question!

The great William Shakespeare said, "What's in a name?" He also said, "Call me Billy one more time and I will stab you with this ink quill.

I'll be supposed upon a book, his face is the worst thing about him.

Unless philosophy can make a Juliet, Displant a town, reverse a prince’s doom, It helps not, it prevails not.

Mother, you have my father much offended.

How now, my sweet creature of bombast! How long is't ago, Jack, since thou saw'st thien own knee?

Hark, how hard he fetches breath.

Funny how you have to picture losing a thing before you think you might value it after all.

There once was a man who was sore 'Cuz his wife wouldn't open the door. Celibacy is just not for me Let me in, you cock-teasing whore.

Afore me! It is so very late, That we may call it early by and by.

What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?

I'm never growing up, I'll just sit in the corner of time and sip my juice box petulantly and judge your terrible Hamlet adaptations.

My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently. HAMLET Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel? POLONIUS By th'mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed. HAMLET Methinks it is like a weasel. POLONIUS It is backed like a weasel. HAMLET Or like a whale? POLONIUS Very like a whale. HAMLET Then I will come to my mother by and by. - They fool me to the top of my bent. - I will come by and by.

she shall scant show well that now shows best.

I want your body. I want your mouth. I want your red hair in my hands. I want your laugh and your funny faces. I want your friendship and your inspirational thoughts. I want Shakespeare and Amber Rose novels … And I want you to come with me when I go.

„I want your body. I want your mouth. I want your red hair in my hands. I want your laugh and your funny faces. I want your friendship and your inspirational thoughts. I want Shakespeare and Amber Rose novels and your memories of Bailey. And I want you to come with me when I go.

By the power of the Tri-Force, I command you to "-------

If you can mock a leek, you can eat a leek!

I'm afraid I always find Shakespeare terribly dreary. All those long scenes where everybody is drunk and it's supposed to be funny.

I will receive it sir with all diligence of spirit. Put your bonnet to his right use, 'tis for the head. OSRIC I thank you lordship, it is very hot. HAMLET No believe me, 'tis very cold, the wind is northerly. OSRIC It is indifferent cold my lord, indeed. HAMLET But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion. OSRIC Exceedingly my lord, it is very sultry, as 'twere - I cannot tell how. But my lord, his majesty bade me signify to you that a has laid a great wager on your head. Sir, this is the matter - HAMLET I beseech you remember. (Hamlet moves him to put on his hat)

A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?

There are things I've given up on Like recording funny answering machine messages. It's part of growing older And the human race as a group has matured along the same lines. It seems our comedy dates the quickest. If you laugh out loud at Shakespeare's jokes I hope you won't be insulted if I say you're trying too hard. Even sketches from the original Saturday Night Live seem slow-witted and obvious now.

What do you want from me, Ambrose?" Fern cried from behind her hands. He pulled at her wrists, wanting to see her face as he laid it all on the line. "I want your body. I want your mouth. I want your red hair in my hands. I want your laugh and your funny faces. I want your friendship and your inspirational thoughts. I want Shakespeare and Amber Rose novels and your memories of Bailey. And I want you to come with me when I go.

For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo

Werewolves and silver bullets!” Shakespeare coughed a quick laugh and shook his head. “Lord, what fools these mortals be!

Si fortune me tormente, sperato me contento

A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap And munched and munched and munched. "Give me," quoth I. "Aroint thee, witch," the rump-fed runnion cries.

woo her, wed her, and bed her, and rid the house of her.

Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping. All the kind of the Launces have this very fault. I have received my proportion, like the prodigious son, and am going with Sir Proteus to the Imperial's court. I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured dog that lives. My mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear. He is a stone, a very pebble stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog. A Jew would have wept to have seen our parting. Why, my grandam, having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I'll show you the manner of it. This shoe is my father. No, this left shoe is my father. No, no, this left shoe is my mother. Nay, that cannot be so neither. Yes, it is so, it is so -- it hath the worser sole. This shoe with the hole in it is my mother, and this my father. A vengeance on't! There 'tis. Now, sir, this staff is my sister, for, look you, she is as white as a lily and as small as a wand. This hat is Nan, our maid. I am the dog. No, the dog is himself, and I am the dog -- O, the dog is me, and I am myself. Ay, so, so. Now come I to my father: 'Father, your blessing.' Now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping. Now should I kiss my father -- well, he weeps on. Now come I to my mother. O, that she could speak now like a wood woman! Well, I kiss her -- why, there 'tis: here's my mother's breath up and down. Now come I to my sister; mark the moan she makes. Now the dog all this while sheds not a tear nor speaks a word!

I will now take the chance to repeat my contention that the drama is handily inferior to the novel and the poem. Dramatists who have lasted more than a century include Shakespeare and – who else? One is soon reaching for a sepulchral Norwegian. Compare that to English poetry and its great waves of immortality. I agree that it is very funny that Shakespeare was a playwright. I scream with laughter about it all the time. This is one of God’s best jokes.

I don’t remember the whole thing, because it was very long, but Atticus recited it for me once, and there was a line that went like this: “Cry ham hock and let slip the hogs of war!” I know you might not agree, but for me that was the best thing Shakespeare ever wrote." You mean, “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war” from Julius Caesar? "No, I don’t think that’s it. There was ham in there; I’m sure he was talking about ham. They were going to battle hunger." I think you might have been hungry when you heard it, Oberon.

Bindu held up her hands in a T-shape. "Neither of you are married or seeing anyone. The aunties did background checks." "Background checks?" Prem asked. "How did you? I mean- I didn't give you any of my personal information." Farha Auntie stood from her chair, brushed off her shoulders, and then stepped closer until she could whisper in his face. "I have your home address, genealogy history, the balance on your credit card, and your social security number prita. As well as the name of your pet beta fish when you were six. Don't test us.

Parliament will also struggle with Shakespeare. Rappers stutter too when they flirt. The palms of poised politicians sweat. Police officers fart. Princesses get wedgies. Royal Guards had to keep from laughing. The last rep in the gym will make any arm shake. Presidents had to apply. Rome fell.

The Lion King? It's just a kid's film. Just a kid's film?!? Yeah, just a kid's film with an IMDB rating of 8.5, 2 Academy Awards and 2 Golden Globes, that's been adapted into THE most successful West-end musical of all time, generating a gross profit of 8 million pounds and counting. "But maybe it's just a kid's film because it doesn't deal with any mature films" said fucking nobody ever. The Lion King is the greatest anthropomorphic assault upon the theme of mortality that Western culture has ever produced. It is so complex that your tiny, shriveled, and scrotum of a brain wouldn't dare to fathom it. So no, it is not just a kid's film, it is Shakespear with fur!

It’s funny—but there will be no need for insurance in heaven. None at all. And there will be so much need for poetry and songs and jokes. People will value what you’ve learned. It doesn’t matter if you can make a living. Shakespeare will be important. You will be so valuable, William. And I will just sit there listening, realizing how I’ve misspent my life.

I began to be very worried about Desdemona. We are given to understand that Othello's courtship of her consisted almost entirely of stories beginning "When I was stationed among the Anthropophagi—" or "I must tell you about a funny thing that happened during the siege of Rhodes." The dramatist Shakespeare would have us believe that she not only put up with this but actually enjoyed it: can that great connoisseur of the human heart really have thought this possible?

Well, that night we had our show; but there warn’t only about twelve people there – just enough to pay expenses. And they laughed all the time, and that made the duke mad; and everybody left, anyway, before the show was over, but one boy which was asleep. So the duke said these Arkansaw lunkheads couldn’t come up to Shakespeare; what they wanted was low comedy – and maybe something ruther worse than low comedy, he reckoned. He said he could size their style. So next morning he got some big sheets of wrapping paper and some black paint, and drawed off some handbills, and stuck them up all over the village. The bills said: AT THE COURT HOUSE! FOR 3 NIGHTS ONLY! The World-Renowned Tragedians DAVID GARRICK THE YOUNGER! AND EDMUND KEAN THE ELDER! Of the London and Continental Theatres, In their Thrilling Tragedy of THE KING’S CAMELEOPARD, OR THE ROYAL NONESUCH ! ! ! Admission 50 cents. Then at the bottom was the biggest line of all, which said: LADIES AND CHILDREN NOT ADMITTED. “There,” says he, “if that line don’t fetch them, I don’t know Arkansaw!

As you sit there watching a performance of a Shakespeare, Johnson, or Marlowe play, the crowd will fade into the background. Instead, you will be struck by the diction. There are words and phrases that you will not find funny, but which will make the crowd roar with laughter. Your familiarity with the meanings of Shakespeare's words will rise and fall as you see and hear the actors' deliveries and notice the audience's reaction. That is the strange music of being so familiar with something that is not of your own time. What you are listening to in that auditorium is the genuine voice, something of which you have heard only distant echoes. Not every actor is perfect in his delivery; Shakespeare himself makes that quite clear in his Hamlet. But what you are hearing is the voice of the men for whom Shakespeare wrote his greatest speeches. Modern thespians will follow the rhythms or the meanings of these words, but even the most brilliant will not always be able to follow both rhythm and meaning at once. If they follow the pattern of the verse, they risk confusing the audience, who are less familiar with the sense of the words. If they pause to emphasize the meanings, they lose the rhythm of the verse. Here, on the Elizabethan stage, you have a harmony of performance and understanding that will never again quite be matched in respect of any of these great writers.

Falstaff is the most unusual figure in fiction. He is almost entirely a good man, a glorious, life-affirming good man, and there is hardly a good man in dramatic literature. There has always been an England, an older England, which was sweeter, purer, where the hay smelled better and the weather was always springtime and the daffodils blew in the gentle warm breezes. You feel a nostalgia for it in Chaucer, and you feel it all throughout Shakespeare. Falstaff is a refugee from that world. He has to live by his wits, he has to be funny, he has no place to sleep if he doesn’t get a laugh out of his patron. It’s a rough modern world that he’s living in. You’ve got to be able to see that look in his eyes that comes out of the age that never existed, the one that exists in the heart of all English poetry.

That New Year I was invited to stay with one of my old school buddies, Sam Sykes, at his house on the far northwestern coast of Sutherland, in Scotland. It is as wild and rugged a place as anywhere on earth, and I love it there. It also happens to boast one of my favorite mountains in the world, Ben Loyal, a pinnacle of rock and steep heather that overlooks a spectacular estuary. So I did not need much encouraging to go up to Sam’s and climb. This time up there, I was to meet the lady who would change my life forever; and I was woefully ill-prepared for the occasion. I headed up north primarily to train and climb. Sam told me he had some other friends coming up for New Year. I would like them, he assured me. Great. As long as they don’t distract me from training, I thought to myself. I had never felt more distant from falling in love. I was a man on a mission. Everest was only two months away. Falling in love was way off my radar. One of Sam’s friends was this young girl called Shara. As gentle as a lamb, beautiful and funny--and she seemed to look at me so warmly. There was something about this girl. She just seemed to shine in all she did. And I was totally smitten, at once. All I seemed to want to do was hang out with her, drink tea, chat, and go for nice walks. I tried to fight the feeling by loading up my backpack with rocks and heavy books, then going off climbing on my own. But all I could think about was this beautiful blond girl who laughed in the most adorable way at how ridiculous it was to carry Shakespeare up a mountain. I could sense already that this was going to be a massive distraction, but somehow, at the same time, nothing else seemed to matter. I found myself wanting to be with this girl all the time.

Now I myself, I cheerfully admit, feel that enormity in Kensington Gardens as something quite natural. I feel it so because I have been brought up, so to speak, under its shadow; and stared at the graven images of Raphael and Shakespeare almost before I knew their names; and long before I saw anything funny in their figures being carved, on a smaller scale, under the feet of Prince Albert. I even took a certain childish pleasure in the gilding of the canopy and spire, as if in the golden palace of what was, to Peter Pan and all children, something of a fairy garden. So do the Christians of Jerusalem take pleasure, and possibly a childish pleasure, in the gilding of a better palace, besides a nobler garden, ornamented with a somewhat worthier aim. But the point is that the people of Kensington, whatever they might think about the Holy Sepulchre, do not think anything at all about the Albert Memorial. They are quite unconscious of how strange a thing it is; and that simply because they are used to it. The religious groups in Jerusalem are also accustomed to their coloured background; and they are surely none the worse if they still feel rather more of the meaning of the colours. It may be said that they retain their childish illusion about their Albert Memorial. I confess I cannot manage to regard Palestine as a place where a special curse was laid on those who can become like little children. And I never could understand why such critics who agree that the kingdom of heaven is for children, should forbid it to be the only sort of kingdom that children would really like; a kingdom with real crowns of gold or even of tinsel. But that is another question, which I shall discuss in another place; the point is for the moment that such people would be quite as much surprised at the place of tinsel in our lives as we are at its place in theirs. If we are critical of the petty things they do to glorify great things, they would find quite as much to criticise (as in Kensington Gardens) in the great things we do to glorify petty things. And if we wonder at the way in which they seem to gild the lily, they would wonder quite as much at the way we gild the weed.

It's funny the things that go through your mind when you're getting the shit kicked out of you. As Bruce Willis' fist came crashing into my face, I thought about that old Shakespeare quote Father Bernard used to throw around back at Holy Name. Something about you only play with a lion when he's a frisky young cub, not when he's an old one, dying. Bruce knew when he agreed to work with me that his career was just about over. He was a lion, once, but now he was just an old one, dying. And I was the only guy around to blame. And man did his fist make that point. Repeatedly.

He didn’t say anything until we approached my trailer. “Truth be told, I was hoping for a goodnight kiss, you know, after the park and everything.” I ignored him and increased my pace again. After a few more steps, I had a small brainstorm and sallied around with a smug expression. “Sorry, it’s not cold enough to kiss you.” He looked puzzled. “Okay, you’ve lost me. What does the cold have to do with you kissing me?” “Simple, the river Phlegethon will have to freeze over before I’ll ever kiss you again.” Dr. Bore would be proud of my mythology reference. Seth just threw his head back and laughed. “I’m glad you think that’s funny.” He gently, but firmly, took my chin in his hand. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.” He did not just misquote Shakespeare to me! “I watched you taste my kiss back at the park, Maggie. You enjoyed it as much as I did. You know it and I know it.” His voice rumbled soft, low, and yummy. I yanked my head free and walked up the small path to my porch. “Sooner or later, Maggie, our lips will meet again. Personally, I’m voting for sooner.” I wheeled around, almost losing my balance. “Why do guys like you think every girl wants to make out with them? I don’t get it.” The playful grin had vanished from his face. “I didn’t ask you to make out, Maggie. Goodnight.” A twist of guilt clutched at my belly as he walked away.

It's funny, but Shakespeare, with all its passion, never does too well at the box office. And d'you know why? Because most people are fools. They shrink like violets from good, honest passion, which, if only they'd be honest and admit it, is all they feel themselves in the name of love. They will wrap sex up in pretty, piffling declarations of love. The big, tough hero must carry his mate off into the bush, but by heaven, if he doesn't say, afterwards, 'I love you, darling' — cut! The censor is swooning. Or the public are.

What we find enjoyable we naturally find shareable. Why is this? Because joy shared is joy intensified. Shakespeare said it this way, “Joy delights in joy.” We love to see others discover joy in the things we have discovered joy in, and our joy is increased when they have praised what we have shared. We see this everywhere. When you hear a really funny joke, you call your best friend and laugh together. When you hear an incredible song, you post it to Facebook to let everyone hear it. When you take an adorable picture of your child, you send it to your extended family to get their “oh’s” and “ah’s.” This is the way God created us, because this is the way God Himself is.

In April 2012, The New York Times published a heart-wrenching essay by Claire Needell Hollander, a middle school English teacher in the New York City public schools. Under the headline “Teach the Books, Touch the Heart,” she began with an anecdote about teaching John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. As her class read the end together out loud in class, her “toughest boy,” she wrote, “wept a little, and so did I.” A girl in the class edged out of her chair to get a closer look and asked Hollander if she was crying. “I am,” she said, “and the funny thing is I’ve read it many times.” Hollander, a reading enrichment teacher, shaped her lessons around robust literature—her classes met in small groups and talked informally about what they had read. Her students did not “read from the expected perspective,” as she described it. They concluded (not unreasonably) that Holden Caulfield “was a punk, unfairly dismissive of parents who had given him every advantage.” One student read Lady Macbeth’s soliloquies as raps. Another, having been inspired by Of Mice and Men, went on to read The Grapes of Wrath on his own and told Hollander how amazed he was that “all these people hate each other, and they’re all white.” She knew that these classes were enhancing her students’ reading levels, their understanding of the world, their souls. But she had to stop offering them to all but her highest-achieving eighth-graders. Everyone else had to take instruction specifically targeted to boost their standardized test scores. Hollander felt she had no choice. Reading scores on standardized tests in her school had gone up in the years she maintained her reading group, but not consistently enough. “Until recently, given the students’ enthusiasm for the reading groups, I was able to play down that data,” she wrote. “But last year, for the first time since I can remember, our test scores declined in relation to comparable schools in the city. Because I play a leadership role in the English department, I felt increased pressure to bring this year’s scores up. All the teachers are increasing their number of test-preparation sessions and practice tests, so I have done the same, cutting two of my three classic book groups and replacing them with a test preparation tutorial program.” Instead of Steinbeck and Shakespeare, her students read “watered-down news articles or biographies, bastardized novels, memos or brochures.” They studied vocabulary words, drilled on how to write sentences, and practiced taking multiple-choice tests. The overall impact of such instruction, Hollander said, is to “bleed our English classes dry.” So

He put it in reverse and tapped the gas...And was astounded when the thing growled backward like it was stalking a Honda to eat for lunch.

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. -William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616)

Who Am I?” To date, I have uncovered that I am: Insecure, confident. Stupid, intelligent. Lame, funny. Pessimistic, optimistic. Deceitful, truthful. A loyal friend, a loyal enemy. A loving son, a hateful subject. A killer, a lifesaver. A captive, and a free man.

He didn't give a shit if Shakespeare didn't have glitter back in his day.

She had devoted time to improving her reading and was now more than proficient. The shelf she'd first cleared with Bianca overflowed with tales of King Arthur and his knights, Ovid's poetry, plays by Sophocles, Aristotle and Aeschylus, Apuleius, names she loved repeating in her mind because the mere sound of them conjured the drama, pageantry, passion, transformations and suffering of their heroes and heroines. One of her favorite writers was Geoffrey Chaucer-- his poems of pilgrims exchanging stories as they traveled to a shrine in Canterbury were both heart aching and often sidesplittingly funny. Admittedly, one of the reasons she loved Chaucer was because she could read him for herself. It was the same reason she picked up Shakespeare over and over, and the works of Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle upon Tyne. They all wrote in English. Regarded as quite the eccentric, the duchess was a woman of learning who, like Rosamund, was self-taught. Her autobiography, A True Relation of my Birth, Breeding and Life, a gift from Mr. Henderson, gave Rosamund a model to emulate. Here was a woman who dared to consider not only philosophy, science, astronomy and romance, but to write about her reflections and discoveries in insightful ways. Defying her critics, she determined that women were men's intellectual equal, possessed of as quick a wit and as many subtleties if only given the means to express themselves-- in other words, access to education.

We take the original plays of William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, and Markus gives them . . . well, the necessary polish.” “Aren’t the plays good enough by themselves?” Barbara asked. “Well, for the general public they’re sometimes just too difficult and dry, so we cut out the long monologues and concentrate on the funny parts and, above all, the bloody passages. Many of the pieces have not yet been translated into German, and Markus takes care of that, as well.” “I butcher Shakespeare’s plays by turning them into bloody spectacles for the masses,” Markus sighed in despair. “Carefully constructed pentameter, beautiful images—for that the world clearly has no taste nowadays. The more blood, the better. But I myself have written original pieces that—” “Yes, yes,” Malcolm interrupted, “that would be enough to make Shakespeare cry, I know—or simply put him to sleep. I’m afraid you’re boring the ladies, Markus. Just like your plays. We can’t afford experiments. After all, I have a whole troupe to feed,” he said, clapping his hands. “But now it’s time to get back to building the stage. Will you excuse us?” He bowed to Magdalena and Barbara and stomped off toward the stage, but not without first casting a final, reproachful look at his two actors. “Old slave driver,” Markus mumbled and followed him, while Matheo paused a moment and winked at Barbara. “Then can we look forward to seeing you again at tomorrow’s performance? We’ll save a few seats for you up in the gallery. Ciao, signorine.” “Ciao,” Barbara said, batting her eyelashes as Matheo, in one single, flowing movement, jumped back onto the stage. Magdalena grinned at her sister. “Ciao?” she asked. “Is that the way a Schongau hangman’s daughter says good-bye, or are you an Italian contessa addressing her prince just before their wedding?

Oh, Will, shake me with your spear!

I think [someone else] wrote Shakespeare. If you don't, there are some awfully funny coincidences to explain away.” Orson Welles, in an interview with theater critic Kenneth Tynan, related in Persona Grata, by Cecil Beaton and Kenneth Tynan, Winthrop, New York, 1953.

Off the record, though, I think something is very, very rotten in the state of Denmark. Well, in the state of W.1.

When I pick, I like plays. You know. I get to ham it up. Read all the parts. Right now, we're nearly done with A Midsummer Night's Dream. Then she'll choose something." "Isn't that Shakespeare?" asked Evon. and ad bib "You don't think there's room for Shakespeare in my common little mind?" "I didn't mean that." "Yes you did. Hey, listen, we've done all the classic comedies in the last year. Tartuffe. The Importance of Being Earnest. The Man Who Came to Dinner. We're having a great time. You know, sometimes she likes a break, so I'll read her a novel. She likes all the law guys." He showed her the next one they'd take up, Mitigating Circumstances, which was on a table downstairs. His mother-in-law, with her fatal touch, had brought a number of books that nei ther Rainey nor he much cared for, self-help guides, even a couple of picture books of far-off places written for juveniles.

What you, egg?