Suit the Action to the word
Viola De Lesseps: I love you, Will, beyond poetry.
Philip Henslowe: You see -- comedy. Love, and a bit with a dog. That's what they want.
Viola De Lesseps: [as Juliet] I do remember well where I should be, and there I am -- where is my Romeo?
Nurse: [shouting from the audience] Dead!
Richard Burbage: The Master of the Revels despises us all for vagrants and peddlers of bombast. But my father, James Burbage, had the first license to make a company of players from Her Majesty, and he drew from poets the literature of the age. We must show them that we are men of parts. Will Shakespeare has a play. I have a theatre. The Curtain is yours.
[Dropping Mr. Henslowe's feet into hot coals.]
Hugh Fennyman: Henslowe! Do you know what happens to a man who doesn't pay his debts? His boots catch fire!
Lord Wessex: I have spoken with your father.
Viola De Lesseps: So, my lord? I speak with him every day.
William Shakespeare: I have a new play.
Christopher Marlowe: What's it called?
William Shakespeare: Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter.
Christopher Marlowe: What is the story?
William Shakespeare: Well, there's this pirate...
Christopher Marlowe: I thought your play was for Burbage.
William Shakespeare: This is a different one.
Christopher Marlowe: A different one you haven't written?
Queen Elizabeth: Mr. Tilney! Have a care with my name -- you will wear it out!
[After sex.]
Viola De Lesseps: I would not have thought it: there IS something better than a play!
Will Shakespeare: There is.
Viola De Lesseps: Even your play.
Will Shakespeare: Hmm?
Viola De Lesseps: And that was only my first try.
Lord Wessex: I cannot shed blood in her house, but I will cut your throat anon. What is your name?
William Shakespeare: Christopher Marlowe, at your service.
Lord Wessex: Is she obedient?
Sir Robert de Lesseps: As any mule in Christendom -- but if you are the man to ride her, there are rubies in the saddlebag.
Lord Wessex: I like her!
Tilney: That woman is a woman!
Lord Wessex: My lady, the tide waits for no man, but I swear it would wait for you.
Viola de Lesseps: [as Thomas Kent] Tell me how you love her, Will.
William Shakespeare: Like a sickness and its cure together.
Queen Elizabeth: I know something of a woman in a man's profession. Yes, by God, I do know about that.
[On first hearing the tragic ending to Romeo and Juliet.]
Philip Henslowe: Well, that will have them rolling in the aisles.
Viola De Lesseps: This is not life, Will. It is a stolen season.
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.
Viola De Lesseps: I loved a writer and gave up the prize for a sonnet.
William Shakespeare: I was the more deceived.
Viola De Lesseps: Yes, you were deceived, for I did not know how much I loved you.
[Saying their goodbyes.]
William Shakespeare: You will never age for me, nor fade, nor die.
Ned Alleyn: Pay attention and you will see how genius creates a legend.
William Shakespeare: Love denied blights the soul we owe to God.
Lord Wessex: How is this to end?
Queen Elizabeth: As stories must when love's denied: with tears and a journey.
William Shakespeare: You see? The comsumptives plot against me. "Will Shakespeare has a play, let us go and cough through it."
Viola De Lesseps: Master Shakespeare?
William Shakespeare: The same, alas.
Viola De Lesseps: Oh, but why "alas"?
William Shakespeare: A lowly player.
Viola De Lesseps: Alas indeed, for I thought you the highest poet of my esteem and writter of plays that capture my heart.
William Shakespeare: Oh -- I am him too!
Queen Elizabeth: And tell Shakespeare, something more cheerful next time, for Twelfth Night.