113 Drama Quotes

By whatever means it is accomplished, the prime business of a play is to arouse the passions of its audience so that by the route of passion may be opened up new relationships between a man and men, and between men and Man. Drama is akin to the other inventions of man in that it ought to help us to know more, and not merely to spend our feelings.

Acting should be bigger than life. Scripts should be bigger than life. It should all be bigger than life.

He played the King as though under momentary apprehension that someone else was about to play the ace.

I think that's what distinguishes Schmidt, really. In the movies now, so much of what is appealing to an audience is the dramatic or has to do with science fiction, and Schmidt is simply human. There's no melodrama; there's no device, It's just about a human being.

I like drama. I love being in a drama where I get to be the funny guy. That's what I really love the most.

Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy In sceptred pall come sweeping by, Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line, Or the tale of Troy divine.

If you believe, as the Greeks did, that man is at the mercy of the gods, then you write tragedy. The end is inevitable from the beginning. But if you believe that man can solve his own problems and is at nobody's mercy, then you will probably write melodrama.

The error in the art-genre of Opera consists herein: a Means of expression (Music) has been made the end, while the End of expression (the Drama) has been made a means.

One recalls how much the creative impulse of the best-sellers depends upon self-pity. It is an emotion of great dramatic potential.

Dullness in matters of government is a good sign, and not a bad one - in particular, dullness in parliamentary government is a test of its excellence, an indication of its success.

Show me a character whose life arouses my curiosity, and my flesh begins crawling with suspense.

The trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama, is the most degraded of all trades.

'If heaven is the reason and dieing is the door, than why aren't we all leaving what's the drama for?'

I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself, 'All right, then, I'll GO to hell.'

Farce may often border on tragedy; indeed, farce is nearer tragedy in its essence than comedy is.

A tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action ... with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions. (1449b24)

Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night.

God will give him blood to drink!

Folks, all I can say is sit back and relax. I think we're in for a real culinary donnybrook here. (smiles proudly) That means brawl.

I write about private dilemmas that have become public calamities.

Though the most be players, some must be spectators.

There is nothing so interesting on stage than a man trying to get a knot out of his shoelaces.

Most reporters I've spoken with want very badly to understand what is happening to her, but the 'why' is really very unimportant. That is just not the point of the show. The journey is how she will deal with this situation, and how it will change her life.

I'm having so much fun with the poisonous people Spreading rumours and lies and stories they made up Some make you sing and some make you scream One makes you wish that you'd never been seen.

On this night 25 years ago, from the testicles of Vince McMahon himself came something so horrifying it sends chills up and down the bodies of men all over the world: tonight marks the birth of Stephanie McMahon.

The candlelight dances off her mahogany coloured skin as she un-robes - AND THEN THE CAGE COMES DOWN!

As for myself, I am simply Hop-Frog, the jester - and this is my last jest.

'I enjoy being a bitch. I enjoy being surrounded by bitches. Boredom is the biggest disease in the world, darling. Sometimes I think there must be more to life than rushing round the world like a mad thing getting bored.'

For I am shave as neigh as any frere. But yit I praye unto youre curteisye: Beeth hevy again, or elles moot I die.

The material of a dramatist is always some conflict of human feeling with circumstances.

The actors are, it seems, the usual three: Husband and wife and lover.

'Air! Air!' croaked Kralefsky, 'Give me air!' 'Interesting,' said Colonel Ribbindane. 'Saw a pygmy like that once in the Congo... been trapped in an elephant's stomach. The elephant is the largest African quadruped..' 'Do get him out,' said Mother agitatedly. 'Get some brandy.' 'Fan him! Blow on him!' shrilled Margo, and burst into tears. 'He's dying, he's dying, and he never finished his trick.'

Since the scenes where they're together are so much less convincing than the ones where they fall apart, watching the movie is like being on a double-date from hell.

It's so rare to find a movie that doesn't take sides. Conflict is said to be the basis of popular fiction, and yet here is a film that seizes us with its first scene and never lets go, and we feel sympathy all the way through for everyone in it. To be sure, they sometimes do bad things, but the movie understands them and their flaws. Like great fiction, House of Sand and Fog sees into the hearts of its characters, and loves and pities them. ... 'House of Sand and Fog' relates not a plot with its contrived ups and downs but a story. A plot is about things that happen. A story is about people who behave. To admire a story you must be willing to listen to the people and observe them, and at the end of House of Sand and Fog, we have seen good people with good intentions who have their lives destroyed because they had the bad luck to come across a weak person with shabby desires.

Hamm: Can there be misery (he yawns) loftier than mine?

Anton Chekhov wrote that 'one must not put a loaded rifle on stage if no one is thinking of firing it.' Good drama requires spare and purposive action, sensible linking of potential causes with realized effects. Life is much messier; nothing happens most of the time. Millions of Americans (many hotheaded) own rifles (many loaded), but the great majority, thank God, do not go off most of the time. We spend most of real life waiting for Godot, not charging once more unto the breach.

For what's a play without a woman in it?

'One, two and three, he got him, no he didn't' (often suffixed with 'I can't believe he didn't get him')

(to Kane) 'Burn in Hell, you son of a bitch'

(to Kane) 'HAVE A NICE RIDE!'

My half brother or half sister, your bastard child is a WWE Superstar. (Towards Vince during the McMahon Strikes Back storyline)

To have nothing to say and to say it in a tragic manner is not the same thing as having something to say.

All perform their tragic play, There struts Hamlet, there is Lear, That's Ophelia, that Cordelia.

What are you telling me, that you're, you're, you're gonna leave Emily, is this true? And, and run away with the, the, the winner of the Zelda Fitzgerald emotional maturity award?

Like Hamlet, I have to choose between life and death. (1994)

History!... Everybody kept saying to me to put a cold towel around my head and wipe the blood off... later, I saw myself in the mirror; my whole face spattered with blood and hair... I wiped it off with Kleenex... History! ... I thought, no one really wants me there. Then one second later I thought, why did I wash the blood off? I should have left it there, let them see what they've done... If I'd just had the blood and caked hair when they took the picture ... Then later I said to Bobby- what's the line between history and drama? I should have kept the blood on.

... overdramatizing the word of God, turning the Scriptures into a cross between a German opera and a hockey game.

Any of you niggas from New York that want to bring it, Bring it./But we ain't singing, We bringing drama

Stephanie walks into her and Triple H's room and catches Triple H showing Trish Stratus finishing moves

The trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama, is the most degraded of all trades.

And I'm Ross Mitchell. I quit. This has been Coast to Coast with Art Bell... trying to prove that little people live in the middle of a hurricane. Je-eeee-sus!

Woman up. Butch up. (deep man voice) JESUS.

'The bitch is back!'

Rock: Finally, The Rock has come back to New Jersey! Just as sure as for the very 1st time, Kevin Kelly, the rock stepped right is this Arena and called you an ugly hermaphrodite, is as sure as this Sunday night at Armageddon, The Rock will be in hell, in a cell. This is gonna be the most brutal match The Rock has ever been in. The dangerous-est match The Rock has ever been in. The Hell-in-a-cell. And it doesn't matter Kevin Kelly what you call it. Whether it's called a Hell-in-a-cell, or rage-in-the-cage, painus-in-your-anus, the only thing that matters is that The Rock is going in this sunday night to do exactly what he does best. And thats layeth the smackdown and get back The Rocks WWF Title. And the fact of the matter is this, is that The Rock knows, this Sunday night he's got his work cut out for him. The Rock knows he's got 5 other guys he's gotta compete with, and even it The Rock's gotta beat Kurt Angle, which means - - (Mocking Kurt Angle) I'mm gonna drink a big glass of milk! Have some chocolate cookies, and maybe have 3 viagra! (Normal Voice) Or maybe The Rock's gotta face Rikishi, beat Rikishi! (Imitating Rikishi) I did it for the rock. I did it for the people. I did it for - - (Normal Voice) Oh, SHUT YOUR MOUTH, YOU THONG-WEARIN' FATTY! Or maybe, The Rock's gotta beat the Undertaker, the American Bad-Ass. Beat him so bad that one more time he'll rise up - - (imitating undertaker) Rest... In... Peace......... ('Fainting' but rising, and speaking in his normal voice) or maybe The Rock's gotta beat Triple-H himself - - (Imitating HHH) Which means-ah... He's gotta beat The Game-ah... In the middle of the Ring-ah... And he has a 2-dollar s*** for a wife-ah...... (Normal Voice) Or maybe The Rock, has gotta to beat - - (Wearing Stone-Cold Steve Austin's hat, and speaking with his southern accent) Stone Cold Steve Austin, which means, I gotta get in, I gotta get in my Pick-up truck, drink some Steve-Weiser, listen to some Backstreet Boys... (silence) ... and That's the bottom Line, 'cuz the Great One said so! (Normal Voice) And one more thing, this Sunday night at Armageddon, The Rock's gotta do all he can to win the WWF Title, IF YA SMEEEEEEEEEEELL......... WHAT THE ROCK IS COOKIN'!

The Comedy of Errors

Henry IV, Part I

Henry IV, Part II

Henry VI, Part II

Measure for Measure

The Merchant of Venice

Pericles, Prince of Tyre

The Taming of the Shrew

Troilus and Cressida

Two Gentlemen of Verona

The Winter's Tale

Okay, That tears it!

All's Well That Ends Well

Drama is life with the dull bits left out.

What would there be in a story of happiness? Only what prepares it, only what destroys it can be told.

'If you mean Mr. Weston to be one of your victims,' said I, with affected indifference, 'you will have to make such overtures yourself that you will find it difficult to draw back when he asks you to fulfil the expectations you have raised.'

I'm a ham. I was immediately attracted to fencing because it seemed like a romantic, melodramatic form of combat.

Violence shouldn't be presented as drama. I think people looking for an easy way out often write scenes where characters come into violent conflict as opposed to looking for the true drama in the situation. That's a shortcoming of a lot of films and television shows. I think certain presentations of violence are not immoral, but amoral.

King's Cross! What shall we do? His Purple Robe Is rent in two!

Should there be danger of such an event - should he be the cause of adding a single more trouble to her existence - Why, I think, I shall be justified in goint to extremes! I wish you had sincerity enough to tell me whether Catherine would suffer greatly from his loss. The fear that she would restrains me: and there you see the distinction between our feelings - Had he been in my place, and I in his, though I hated him with a hatred that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against him. You may look incredulous, if you please! I never would have banished him from her society, as long as she desired his. The moment her regard ceased, I would have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood! But, till then, if you don't believe me, you don't know me - till then, I would have died by inches before I touched a single hair of his head!

The ever importunate murmur, 'Dramatize it, dramatize it!'

Jack: Smell?... What do I want with smelling salts?

'Mani Madhava Chakyar was performing sikhinisalabha... Butterflies fly all around. Some of them fell into the fire below. The anguish was reflected in the actor's eyes. Ha! There they come out without a burn! What a relief! They came again. The actor continued the performance. Only his eyes move: The audience was spellbound. They did not know that an hour has passed!' - About his world famous abhinaya of the shloka shikhinisalabha from Subhadradhananjayam.[18]

As a rule, you see, I'm not lugged into Family Rows. On the occasions when Aunt is calling Aunt like mastodons bellowing across premieval swamps and Uncle James's letter about Cousin Mabel's peculiar behaviour is being shot round the familty circle ('Please read this carefully and send it on Jane') the clan has a tendency to ignore me. It's one of the advantages I get from being a bachelor - and, according to my nearest and dearest, practically a half-witted bachelor at that.

I turned to Aunt Agatha, whose demeanour was now rather like that of one who, picking daisies on the railway, has just caught the down express in the small of the back.

Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing-glove.

'You must remember, Father,' said Mavis, in a voice which would have had an Eskimo slapping his ribs and calling for the steam-heat, 'that this girl was probably very pretty. So many of these New York girls are. That would, of course, explain Frederick's behaviour.'

He then gave a hideous laugh and added that, if anybody was interested in his plans, he was going to join the Foreign Legion, that cohort of the damned in which broken men may toil and die and dying, forget. 'Beau Widgeon?' said the Egg, impressed. 'What ho!'

Everything written is as good as it is dramatic. It need not declare itself in form, but it is drama or nothing.

'Every drama school in the country turned me down, and so I was lucky to study drama at all, even if it was lowly Birmingham University. But even when I came out with my degree, my mother promptly insisted I go straight to secretarial college to have something to fall back on, just in case - which didn't exactly fill me with confidence.'

Drama assumes an order. If only so that it might have - by disrupting that order - a way of surprising.

Surrounded by assassins!

Samson Agonistes (1671)

Coriolanus

Cymbeline

Twelfth Night