"when you look for the motivations you always go to the basic instincts, to the basic emotions, the basic things that have moved humankind always. That's what all writers write about, ultimately. What did Shakespeare write about? Jealousy, love, sex, power, greed, the same stuff that soap operas and the Bible are made of. It's always the same."

"The vision that impels feminists to action was the vision of the Grandmothers' society, the society that was captured in the words of the sixteenth-century explorer Peter Martyr nearly five hundred years ago. It is the same vision repeated over and over by radical thinkers of Europe and America, from François Villon to John Locke, from William Shakespeare to Thomas Jefferson, from Karl Marx to Friedrich Engels, from Benito Juarez to Martin Luther King, from Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Judy Grahn, from Harriet Tubman to Audre Lorde, from Emma Goldman to Bella Abzug, from Malinalli to Cherrie Moraga, and from Iyatiku to me. That vision as Martyr told it is of a country where there are "no soldiers, no gendarmes or police, no nobles, kings, regents, prefects, or judges, no prisons, no lawsuits... All are equal and free.""

"I love that moment in Joyce when his friend, the painter, asks him the desert-island question about which of the two greatest Western writers to keep: "I should like to answer Dante, but I would have to take the Englishman, because he is richer!" He is, it's the truth. He is richer than Homer, which is astonishing. Everybody in The Divine Comedy, except Dante the Pilgrim, has achieved their final form. But Shakespeare is change. In that sense, he always remains an Ovidian poet, and in the same sense, anti-Platonic."

"To be or not to be, that is the question."

"I keep saying, Shakspeare, Shakspeare, you are as obscure as life is."

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em."

"There, Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb The crowns o' the world. Oh, eyes sublime With tears and laughter for all time."

"If music be the food of love, play on."

"What cannot be eschewed must be embraced"

"Beauty itself doth of itself persuade The eyes of men without an orator."

"Time's glory is to calm contending kings, To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light."

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments."

"Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice."

"'The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.'"

"All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand."

"Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust."

"However wickedness outstrips men, it has no wings to fly from God."

"The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burnt on the water."

"I am a man, More sinn'd against than sinning."

"Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day."

"The fox barks not, when he would steal the lamb."

"She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd; She is a woman, therefore to be won."

"Nothing can come of nothing."

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

"Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar-school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used; and, contrary to the king, his crown, and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill."

"The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on."

"O God! methinks, it were a happy life, To be no better than a homely swain; To sit upon a hill, as I do now, To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, Thereby to see the minutes how they run: How many make the hour full complete, How many hours bring about the day, How many days will finish up the year, How many years a mortal man may live."

"Down, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither."

"Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York."

"Off with his head!"

"A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"

"What light through yonder window breaks?"

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet."

"O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?"

"The course of true love never did run smooth."

"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind."

"If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces."

"It is a wise father that knows his own child."

"All that glisters is not gold."

"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, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd 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?"

"The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life."

"A man can die but once."

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."

"As merry as the day is long."

"Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever; One foot in sea, and one on shore, To one thing constant never."

"Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps."

"Beware the ides of March."

"Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends."