Top 99 Hamlet Quotes

Both Brutus and Hamlet are highly intellectual by nature and reflective by habit. Both may even be called, in a popular sense, philosophic; Brutus may be called so in a stricter sense.

The funny thing with Ophelia is that I remembered her being this really cool, awesome female character when I read ‘Hamlet’ in high school, and when I went back and read it, no, she’s not.

When I see a friend play Hamlet or see an inspirational performance, I absolutely get excited by the idea of changing things up.

Most actors are either a shower of bloody scruffs or think they should dress like Hamlet off stage.

Probably 90 percent of the stuff I make has inevitably been done before… Whether it’s playing Hamlet, which has been on the go for 400 years, or pieces from the cinematic world that also have been essayed before, I feel released by that.

Every time has its own ‘Hamlet.’

If you were to ask everyone what ‘Hamlet’ was about, they might say, “It’s about a prince, and he says, ‘To be or not to be.'”

I grew up doing regional Shakespeare, and when Hamlet sees the ghost of his father, there’s something about that that you don’t really do in film anymore.

I have never wanted to check out the family folklore that we could be traced back to a dominie at the hamlet of Balquhidder in the Scottish highlands.

I was doing Hamlet in the off-season, and I had a specific idea in my mind about what I wanted that character to look like, and because it’s going to lead into the next year, I knew that it was going to have to be established somewhere in the show.

Visually speaking, nothing calls Shakespeare to mind like Hamlet holding Yorick’s skull.

Romeo is the most misunderstood character in literature, I think. He’s hardcore to play because he’s displaying the characteristics of Hamlet at the beginning, and, well, then everything else happens.

I have no problems with remakes, and I think it’s interesting. I mean, coming from the theater, we’ve been remaking ‘Hamlet’ for a hundred years, so it’s no problem to me at all. A good story can be told in many different ways in different places; I just think it’s interesting.

‘Hamlet’ is a play about a man whose grief is deemed unseemly.

The great thing about Satan is it’s kind of like Hamlet. Everyone puts their own signature on it in a way, whether it’s Al Pacino or little old me.

I got dared to audition for a play by my best friend Paul. He got cast in ‘Hamlet,’ and I got cast in ‘Prelude to a Kiss,’ and that changed everything.

I look forward to the day when indigenous actors can play Hamlet and Ophelia and not just Othello and Desdemona.

There have been more books alone written about Hamlet than have been written about the Bible.

There’s posh character actors. For God’s sake, Olivier was one of the greatest character actors in the world. Hamlet, Shylock, Othello – Othello! Whether you like it or not.

When I think of all the Hamlets I’ve seen, there’s been a load of different styles, some marvellous. You like the Hamlet you saw when you were the right age to think you could be Hamlet.

You have to learn the language of Hamlet.

Hamlet is a little daunting.

Every young actor wants to do ‘Hamlet’ on the West End. Why? Because they can bring something to it.

Anytime you create art, you create a mess. I mean, ‘Hamlet’ is a mess!

I look at it like this: that if Shakespeare were alive today, he would have written two or three plays about the Kennedy family, and actors would traditionally play JFK like they Hamlet or King Lear. They just would. I mean, people have played JFK, and they’ll play him long after I have.

Shakespeare is in many ways an African writer and ‘Hamlet’ would be seen as a very accurate historical saga about an African kingdom.

At the close of the day when the hamlet is still, and mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove, when naught but the torrent is heard on the hill, and naught but the nightingale’s song in the grove.

I never want to see ‘Hamlet’ ever again! Never ever!

One of the most beautiful things about Shakespeare’s Hamlet is when he stops in the middle of the play to ask, ‘To be or not to be?’ Then, right at the end, he decides to ‘let be.’ The first season of ‘Stranger Things’ was Hopper asking whether ‘to be or not to be’ and the second is to ‘let be.’

The review I’ve been most offended by came when I played Hamlet. I’d always prided myself on being an ‘invisible actor’ and not getting in the way of the play. But this review didn’t mention me once. That’s worse than being insulted.

Few areas which are not publicly owned can boast as many footpaths as the Cuckmere Valley. For a short walk, a footbridge across the river leads back to the little hamlet of Milton Street, where another classic local pub, the Sussex Ox, provides an admirable lunch.

What if Shakespeare had had a test audience for Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet?

Hamlet is the result of Shakespeare’s work on Brutus.

In Shakespeare’s world, characters cannot trust their senses. Is the ghost in Hamlet true and truthful, or is it a demon, tempting young Hamlet into murderous sin? Is Juliet dead or merely sleeping? Does Lear really stand at the edge of a great cliff? Or has the Fool deceived him to save his life?

As a child, I would watch ‘Frasier’ a lot, and there was one episode with Derek Jacobi where he was playing this Shakespearean actor that was a terrible Hamlet. And he reenacted the performance, and for days I went on. I’d perform and do that, and I knew I wanted to do something kind of like that as a kid for awhile.

I still want to find some place to play ‘Hamlet,’ and if ‘Far and Away’ helps me do that, that would be nice.

I have felt some twinges recently, about parts I wanted to play that I may be getting too old and fat to do. ‘Hamlet,’ for example – maybe that’s gone. I would love to play Richard II.

Five billion people have played Hamlet. ‘To be or not to be.’ And how do you do that and find your way into your own journey, your own way of telling it?

Who of English speech, bred to the traditions of his race, does not recognize Hamlet in his ‘inky cloak’ at a glance? Not to know him would argue one’s self untaught in the chief glories of his language.

I’m just an entertainer. All I want to be is funny. I never aspired to play Hamlet.

Hamlet’ is a real ensemble piece: you have to realise that he’s just one part of the story.

As an artist, you’re thankful to get a shot at a story more than once, because it doesn’t happen all the time. Whether you talk about ‘Hamlet’ or ‘Death of a Salesman,’ you always want to see what the next group of actors will do.

The actor is too prone to exaggerate his powers; he wants to play Hamlet when his appearance is more suitable to King Lear.

The most enduring stories in literature generally have some kind of crime at their center, whether it’s the bloody butchery of ‘Hamlet,’ the lecherous misanthropes of Dickens or the lone gunman from ‘The Great Gatsby.’

I’d love to play St. Joan or Hamlet, and hopefully I will.

Every time one can write a self-deluded song, you are way ahead of the game, way ahead. Self-delusion is the basis of nearly all the great scenes in all the great plays, from ‘Oedipus’ to ‘Hamlet.’

You think back and you ask yourself why you became so interested in wolves. I think it was because when I was very small, growing up in a little hamlet near Shap, we would go to Lowther Wildlife Park for birthday parties. Now closed, it was only three miles from my parents’ house.

I played Hamlet, I played Chekhov and Ibsen and all the classics.

I was so scared of going back to the theatre after ‘Hamlet.’ I didn’t know if I’d do a play again because I was afraid of the power of it.

I’m on the list that I thought I’d never be on. I’m not sitting here thinking, ‘God, I might get this part’ or ‘is it too late for me to play Hamlet?’ It’s really about: who do I get to work with? There’s so many people on that list.

After the first ‘Hedwig,’ interestingly, I was offered to play Hamlet a couple of times.

‘Hamlet’ is a play of many strange parts, with ghosts and players, politicians and clowns.

If I ever play Hamlet, it’ll be in a dress!

‘Macbeth’ sags in act four – the England scene with Malcolm and Macduff just doesn’t work theatrically. But with ‘Hamlet,’ although the play is so long, Shakespeare manages to sustain the arc.

I’ve played Hamlet and Coriolanus, Orlando in ‘As You like It’ and Ariel in ‘Tempest,’ among others.

We remake ‘Hamlet’ all the time. That’s sort of what we do, humans.

I don’t make much distinction between being a stand-up comic and acting Shakespeare – in fact, unless you’re a good comedian, you’re never going to be able to play Hamlet properly.

Like, that was weird in ‘Hamlet 2,’ because I played myself there, fully myself, but then I realized, ‘Oh, I’m not playing myself. I’m some weird version of myself.’ So as an actress, you’re always playing something, I don’t even know who I am, how could I become me? I don’t know what that is.

‘Hamlet’ is obviously a role a lot of actors want to portray or be involved with in some way and that I’d like to be involved in.