Shakespeare in Love (1998)
Joseph Fiennes: Will Shakespeare
Photos
Quotes
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[last lines]
William Shakespeare : My story starts at sea, a perilous voyage to an unknown land. A shipwreck. The wild waters roar and heave. The brave vessel is dashed all to pieces. And all the helpless souls within her drowned. All save one. A lady. Whose soul is greater than the ocean, and her spirit stronger than the sea's embrace. Not for her a watery end, but a new life beginning on a stranger shore. It will be a love story. For she will be my heroine for all time. And her name will be Viola.
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William Shakespeare : You will never age for me, nor fade, nor die.
Viola De Lesseps : Nor you, for me.
William Shakespeare : Goodbye, my love. A thousand times goodbye.
Viola De Lesseps : Write me well.
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"Thomas Kent" : Tell me how you love her, Will.
William Shakespeare : Like a sickness - and its cure, together.
"Thomas Kent" : Oh, yes. Like rain and sun. Like cold and heat.
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William Shakespeare : Marlowe's touch was in my Titus Andronicus. And my Henry VI was a house built on his foundation.
Viola De Lesseps : You never spoke so well of him.
William Shakespeare : He was not dead before.
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Viola De Lesseps : Master Shakespeare?
William Shakespeare : The same, alas.
Viola De Lesseps : Oh, but why "alas"?
William Shakespeare : A lowly player.
Viola De Lesseps : Alas indeed, for I thought you the highest poet of my esteem and writer of plays that capture my heart.
William Shakespeare : Oh - I am him too!
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Viola De Lesseps : I do not know to undress a man.
William Shakespeare : It is strange to me, too.
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Philip Henslowe : Another little problem.
William Shakespeare : What'll we do now?
Philip Henslowe : The show must... you know...
William Shakespeare : Go on?
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William Shakespeare : Can you love a fool?
Viola De Lesseps : Can you love a player?
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William Shakespeare : I'm done with theater. The playhouse is for dreamers. Look what the dream brought us.
Viola De Lesseps : It was we ourselves did that. And for my life to come, I would not have it otherwise.
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William Shakespeare : You, sir, are a gentleman.
Ned Alleyn : And you, sir, are a Warwickshire shithouse.
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[after sex]
Viola De Lesseps : I would not have thought it: there IS something better than a play!
William Shakespeare : There is.
Viola De Lesseps : Even your play.
William Shakespeare : Hmm?
Viola De Lesseps : And that was only my first try.
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Viola De Lesseps : I loved a writer and gave up the prize for a sonnet.
William Shakespeare : I was the more deceived.
Viola De Lesseps : Yes, you were deceived, for I did not know how much I loved you.
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Viola de Lesseps : The Queen commands a comedy, Will. The Twelfth Night.
William Shakespeare : A comedy. What would my hero be? The saddest wretch in all the kingdom - to suit with love?
Viola de Lesseps : It's a beginning. Let him be - a duke. And your heroine...
William Shakespeare : Sold in marriage! And half-way to America.
William Shakespeare : At sea then, a voyage to a new world.
Viola de Lesseps : A storm. All are lost.
Viola de Lesseps : She lands on a vast and empty shore. She's brought to the duke... Orsino.
William Shakespeare : Orsino... good name.
Viola de Lesseps : But, fearful of her virtue, she comes to him dressed as a boy.
William Shakespeare : And thus is unable to declare her love.
Viola de Lesseps : But, all ends well.
William Shakespeare : How does it?
Viola de Lesseps : I don't know. It's a mystery.
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William Shakespeare : Follow that boat!
First Boatman : Right you are, guv'nor!... I know your face. Are you an actor?
William Shakespeare : [oh God, here we go again] Yes.
First Boatman : Yes, I've seen you in something. That one about a king.
William Shakespeare : Really?
First Boatman : I had that Christopher Marlowe in my boat once.
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William Shakespeare : Love knows nothing of rank, or riverbank. It will spark between a Queen and the poor vagabond who plays the King - and their love should be minded by each, for love denied blights the soul we owe to God.
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William Shakespeare : His name is Mercutio.
Ned Alleyn : What's the name of the play?
William Shakespeare : Mercutio.
Philip Henslowe : It is?
William Shakespeare : Shh!
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Philip Henslowe : Will! Where is my play? Tell me you have it nearly done! Tell me you have it started.
[desperately]
Philip Henslowe : You have begun?
William Shakespeare : [struggling with his boots] Doubt that the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move.
Philip Henslowe : No, no, we haven't the time. Talk prose.
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William Shakespeare : It's as if my quill is broken... as if the organ of my imagination has dried up... as if the proud tower of my genius has collapsed.
Dr. Moth : Interesting.
William Shakespeare : Nothing comes.
Dr. Moth : Most interesting.
William Shakespeare : It's like trying to pick a lock with a wet herring.
Dr. Moth : Tell me, are you lately humbled in the act of love? How long has it been?
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William Shakespeare : Wait! You're still a maid. And perhaps have mistooken me as I was mistook on Thomas Kent.
Viola De Lesseps : Are you the author of the plays of William Shakespeare?
William Shakespeare : I am.
Viola De Lesseps : Then kiss me again for I am not mistook.
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William Shakespeare : Love denied blights the soul we owe to God.
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William Shakespeare : A broad river divides my lovers: family, duty, fate. As unchangeable as nature.
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William Shakespeare : You see? The comsumptives plot against me. "Will Shakespeare has a play, let us go and cough through it."
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William Shakespeare : I have a wife, yes, and I cannot marry the daughter of Sir Robert De Lesseps. You needed no wife come from Stratford to tell you that, and yet, you let me come to your bed.
Viola De Lesseps : Calf-love. I loved the writer and gave up the prize for a sonnet.
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Lord Wessex : I cannot shed blood in her house, but I will cut your throat anon. Do you have a name?
William Shakespeare : Christopher Marlowe, at your service.
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Viola De Lesseps : It is still dark.
William Shakespeare : It is day. The rooster tells us so.
Viola De Lesseps : It was the owl! Believe me, love, it was the owl.
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William Shakespeare : You cannot marry Wessex.
Viola De Lesseps : If not you, why not Wessex? If not Wessex, the Queen will know the cause and there will be no more Will Shakespeare.
William Shakespeare : No. No.
Viola De Lesseps : But, I will go to Wessex as a widow from these vows, unsolemn as they are, unsanctified.
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Christopher Marlowe : Romeo? Romeo is Italian. Always in and out of love.
William Shakespeare : Yes. That's good. And who does he meet?
Christopher Marlowe : Ethel.
William Shakespeare : Do you think?
Christopher Marlowe : Daughter of his enemy.
William Shakespeare : The daughter of his enemy.
Christopher Marlowe : His best friend is killed in a duel by Ethel's brother - or something. His name is Mercutio.
William Shakespeare : Mercutio! Good name.
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Viola De Lesseps : It is a house of ill repute!
William Shakespeare : It is, Thomas, but of good reputation. Come, there's no harm in a drink!
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William Shakespeare : Love knows nothing of rank or river bank.
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William Shakespeare : You still owe me for One Gentleman of Verona.
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William Shakespeare : Words, words, words. Once I had the gift. I could make love out of words as a potter makes cups of clay. Love that overthrows empires. Love that binds two hearts together come hellfire and brimstone. For six pence a line, I could cause a riot in a nunnery. But, now?
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"Thomas Kent" : Is she beautiful?
William Shakespeare : Thomas, if I could write the beauty of her eyes, I was born to look in them and know myself.
"Thomas Kent" : And her lips?
William Shakespeare : Her lips? The early morning rose would whither on the branch if it could feel envy.
"Thomas Kent" : And her voice, like lark's song?
William Shakespeare : Deeper. Softer. None of your twittering larks. I would banish nightingales from their garden before they interrupt her song.
"Thomas Kent" : Ah, she sings too?
William Shakespeare : Constantly, without doubt. And plays the lute. She has a natural ear. And her bosom. Did I mention her bosom?
"Thomas Kent" : What of her bosom?
William Shakespeare : Oh, Thomas, a pair of pippins as round and rare as golden apples.
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"Thomas Kent" : But what of Lord Wessex?
William Shakespeare : For one kiss, I would defy a thousand Wessexes.
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William Shakespeare : Good title.
Christopher Marlowe : Yours?
William Shakespeare : "Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter". - Oh, yes, I know, I know.
Christopher Marlowe : What is the story?
William Shakespeare : Well, there's this pirate. - In truth I have not written a word.
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William Shakespeare : It is not a comedy I'm writing now.
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William Shakespeare : Henslowe, you have no soul; so, how can you understand the emptiness that seeks a soulmate?
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Rosaline : When will you write me a sonnet, Will?
William Shakespeare : I've lost my gift.
Rosaline : You left it in my bed! Come to look for it again.
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"Thomas Kent" : May I begin sir?
William Shakespeare : Your name.
"Thomas Kent" : Thomas Kent. I would like to do a speech by a writer who commands the heart of every player: What light is light, if Silvia be not seen? What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by? Unless it be to think that she is by, And feed upon the shadow of perfection, Except I be by Silvia in the night, There is no music in the nightingale; Unless I look on Silvia in the day, There is no day for me to look upon; She is my essence, and I leave to be, If I be not...
William Shakespeare : Take off your hat!
"Thomas Kent" : My hat?
William Shakespeare : Where'd you learn how to do that? Let me see you. Take off your hat!
"Thomas Kent" : Are you Master Shakespeare?
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Christopher Marlowe : I thought your play was for Burbage.
William Shakespeare : This is a different one.
Christopher Marlowe : A different one you haven't written?
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Philip Henslowe : Where is my play?
William Shakespeare : It is all locked safe in here.
[points to his head]
Philip Henslowe : God be praised. Locked?
William Shakespeare : As soon as I find my muse.
Philip Henslowe : Who is she this time?
William Shakespeare : She is always Aphrodite.
Philip Henslowe : Aphrodite Baggett, who does it behind the Dog and Crumpet?
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Hugh Fennyman : Master Shakespeare, has asked me to play the part - of the Apoth-ecary.
Philip Henslowe : The Apothecary? Will, what is this story? Where is the shipwreck? How does the comedy end?
William Shakespeare : By God, I wish I knew.
Philip Henslowe : By God, if you do not, who does? Let us have pirates, clowns and a happy ending or we shall send you back to Stratford to your wife.
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Christopher Marlowe : His best friend is killed in a duel by Ethel's brother or something. His name is Mercutio.
William Shakespeare : Mercutio... good name.
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William Shakespeare : Will you lend me 50 pounds?
Philip Henslowe : 50 pounds? What for?
William Shakespeare : Burbage offers me a partnership in Lord Chamberlain's Men. For 50 pounds my days as a hired player are over.
Philip Henslowe : Oh! Cut out my heart! Throw my liver to the dogs!
William Shakespeare : No, then.
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William Shakespeare : Am I mad? Unmended and unmade. Like a puppet in a box.
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Viola De Lesseps : [from her balcony] Romeo, Romeo, a young man of Verona. A comedy by William Shakespeare.
William Shakespeare : My lady!
Viola De Lesseps : Who's there?