Dramatic Monologue Quotes

I think Shakespeare is really the one. Words as music and music as words. Everything he wrote was good, which is really frightening.

I've always wanted to do a Shakespearean soliloquy, or a fake Shakespearean soliloquy, and now I'm doing that more often in shows. Things I've always wanted to do starting to happen.

Shakespeare's language does not require a British accent. It requires a facility with language, and that's all.

The language is always powerful in Shakespeare, but with 'Antony and Cleopatra,' the speeches are so big and muscular and rich - exhausting to speak, actually.

The drama is complete poetry. The ode and the epic contain it only in germ; it contains both of them in a state of high development, and epitomizes both.

I feel like Shakespeare is so epic, in a way that sci-fi genre stuff is epic, it transcends the mundane, and it takes you to this place of real passion and real beauty.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

Of all the mediums, theatre is the one where you really need to have something to say - because it's just you, the words, and the space.

What I'm doing in the work I do, I prefer not to just have a series of jokes. It's nice when audiences can connect with the characters as well.

As a child, I was fascinated by the stories of Dickens acting out everything in front of the mirror as he wrote it down. Later, when you approach his work as an actor, you notice how sayable the dialogue is.

I've always had an affinity for writers who have a poetry background, so I always liked Tennessee Williams.

I do see myself as an old-fashioned storyteller. But there's always a touch of the political in my plays.

I think Mercutio in 'Romeo and Juliet' would be my favorite role. I've never played it, but I would love to do it.

I'd love Shakey Bill to tell me a story - I mean, William Shakespeare, he could squeak a nib couldn't he?

I loved doing Shakespeare. My two favorite roles, in fact, have been Viola in Twelfth Night and Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Anything you put in a play -- any speech -- has got to do one of two things: either define character or push the action of the play along.

I am in the midst of a soliloquy! I wrote this out and memorized it and if you interrupt me I will completely screw it up,' Augustus interrupted. 'Please to be eating your sandwich and listening.

I love how Shakespeare can really rip your heart out one second and then make you laugh the next. He's a master writer.

You realize Shakespeare wasn't stuck for an idea when he said, 'All the world's a stage.'

Performing a one-man Macbeth feels like the greatest challenge.

I think reading Shakespeare's plays when I was young was extremely important. He had the ability to make utter strangers come alive.

Shakespeare is absolutely big in Africa. I guess he's big everywhere. Growing up, Shakespeare was the thing. You'd learn monologues and you'd recite them. And just like hip-hop, it made you feel like you knew how to speak English really well. You had a mastery of the English language to some extent.

At this point we've answered about every question you could possibly imagine about Deep Space Nine, so we do this thing called Theatrical Jazz, where we do a show of bits and pieces of things from plays and literature, poetry... stuff that we like. It's fun.

I owe so much to Shakespeare. Nothing is more humbling and more exhilarating than taking ahold of those sacred words and riding them like a wave.

I am a storyteller by trade.