Kenneth Branagh credited as playing...
William Shakespeare
- William Shakespeare: If you want to be a writer, and speak to others and for others, speak first for yourself. Search within. Consider the contents of your own soul. Your humanity. And if you're honest with yourself, then whatever you write, all is true.
- Henry: Mr. Shakespeare? I don't want to pester you.
- William Shakespeare: Good! Excellent news. Cheerio.
- Henry: I just wanted to ask you...
- William Shakespeare: The best way to get started as a writer is to start writing.
- Henry: No really, could I just...
- William Shakespeare: I don't have a favorite play, I admire all my fellow dramatists equally, and yes, I do think women should be allowed to perform the female roles as is the practice on the continent. Now, please do excuse me.
- Henry: I just wanted to ask how you knew.
- William Shakespeare: Knew what?
- Henry: Everything.
- William Shakespeare: My friend, I don't even know how to keep the slugs out of the Hollyhocks.
- Earl of Southampton: We have only Johnson now.
- William Shakespeare: Who laughs at me because I speak no Greek and don't know whether Bohemia has a coast.
- Earl of Southampton: Oh Christ Will, why do you care what he thinks? You wrote 'King Lear'.
- William Shakespeare: I've lived so long in imaginary worlds, I think I've lost sight of what is real, of what is true.
- William Shakespeare: I'm not a good gardener, it's true. I find it easier to create things with words.
- Anne Shakespeare: He'll write no more.
- William Shakespeare: No. And nor will I.
- Anne Shakespeare: It's not Hamnet you mourn. It's yourself.
- William Shakespeare: What on earth are you doing here? Now, here's what I need you not to pee on. This is what you don't pee on, and this is what you don't pee on here.
- Anne Shakespeare: Husband! It's Sunday!
- William Shakespeare: Sunday?
- Anne Shakespeare: This isn't London. If you miss church here, they'll fine you.
- Maria, Shakespeare's Maid: A garden ain't a play.
- William Shakespeare: Yes, but play, garden, *loaf* - like the ones you bake every morning, all of them begin with an idea from a compulsion to create something of beauty or of need.
- Maria, Shakespeare's Maid: Bread begins with yeast and flour.
- William Shakespeare: Exactly! Ingredients. Now you're getting me. Bushes, brambles, yeast, flour versus players, and they all need a dream which will not be denied, and which must weather all kinds of adversity because the weather will turn, the bugs will infest, the oven will cool, the yeast will sour, and in my case, your fellow workers, heh, like a brilliant lunatic actor called Dick Burbage, will interfere, and they will demand a bigger show for a smaller budget, and a shorter play with a much longer part for him, and all of these trials must be overcome without ever losing sight of the dream itself.
- Maria, Shakespeare's Maid: And what does it feel like when all of that works?
- William Shakespeare: Well, what does freshly baked bread smell like?
- William Shakespeare: I never said an unkind word. I never gave her cause.
- Anne Shakespeare: You spent so long putting words into other people's mouths, you think it only matters what is said.
- William Shakespeare: I try to like him for Susanna's sake, but John is...
- Judith Shakespeare: A hypocritical shit?
- William Shakespeare: A Puritan.
- Judith Shakespeare: That's funny, isn't it? A Puritan who wants to close all the theaters, who'll get all of William Shakespeare's estate? Well, don't you think that's funny? I think that's funny.
- John Hall: I joy to see you dig, sir. At last, given up on your plays to distract the mob from our Lord.
- William Shakespeare: Does the lark song distract you from your God, John?
- John Hall: Of course not. It is evidence of God.
- William Shakespeare: Ah. Well, then, perhaps for some, I was the lark.
- William Shakespeare: John Hall has asked for my help to remove the vicar. I thought he knew me better.
- Anne Shakespeare: Well, he thinks you like him.
- William Shakespeare: I'm a good actor.
- William Shakespeare: For what it's worth, Judith, I have no intention of leaving my estate to John Hall.
- Judith Shakespeare: No. No, you'll leave it to the sainted Susanna, and by law, her property is his, as is her body, for all the use he makes of it.
- Anne Shakespeare: Why did this man slander our Susanna?
- William Shakespeare: My guess is to damage her husband. John Hall is a Puritan, and he would make Holy Trinity and all the town likewise. John Lane, on the other hand, likes his cakes and ale.
- Earl of Southampton: Marlowe? Oh, what a man he was. What a life. Spy, adventurer, fucked for England. Boys, girls, boys and girls. He knew how to live.
- William Shakespeare: He is dead, of course, my lord, so, you know, win some, lose some.
- Earl of Southampton: Yes, they are all dead, Will.
- William Shakespeare: Anne, those sonnets were published illegally without my knowledge or my consent.
- Anne Shakespeare: But you wrote them, Will, and people read them. And after they'd read them, they kept asking, "Who are they? Who is this dark lady he's so in love with?"
- William Shakespeare: They were just poems.
- Anne Shakespeare: The handsome man?
- William Shakespeare: They were just poems.
- Anne Shakespeare: Don't answer. I don't want to know. I didn't want to know then, and I don't want to know now. But I know who some people said he was. Now it appears he's coming to my house a-calling. All these years, Will, worried about your reputation. Have you even once considered mine?