Literature Quote by Gilbert Highet

“Shakespeare's plays are not in the rigorous and critical sense either tragedies or comedies, but compositions of a distinct kind; exhibiting the real state…

— Samuel Johnson

“A condensed Shakespeare with all of the dull parts removed, leaving only the great moments of drama: ghosts, and bloodied daggers, and dying kings.”

— John Connolly

“Shakespeare has united the powers of exciting laughter and sorrow not only in one mind, but in one composition.”

— Samuel Johnson

“The composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelting…

— Samuel Johnson

“It is true that biographical readings of the plays are dangerous, unregulated, prone to sentimentalization. It is absurd to cherry-pick passages of poetry written…

— Charles Nicholl

What, if not Shakespeare, is open for interpretation?

— Kelly Asbury

“It's Shakespeare making fun of love.”

— Rainbow Rowell

I think this [Gnomeo & Juliet] is the closest I ought to get to Shakespeare to be honest.

— Matt Lucas

Shakespeare's plays were a great Teutonic Valhalla with brilliant sunshine at times and violent tempests at others. The world to him was a battlefield,…

— Bjornstjerne Bjornson

What's this thing that gets between us and Shakespeare?

— Al Pacino

Could Shakespeare give a theory of Shakespeare?

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“They didn't understand, for we were Shakespeare, and they were mere actors in the play.”

— Cassandra Giovanni