Shakespeare in Love (1998)

Gwyneth Paltrow: Viola De Lesseps

Photos 

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Quotes 

• 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.

• "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.

• 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.

• Viola De Lesseps : [as Juliet]  I do remember well where I should be, and there I am - where is my Romeo?

  Nurse : [shouting from the audience]  Dead!

• 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!

• Nurse : Lord Wessex was looking at you tonight.

  Viola De Lesseps : All the men at court are without poetry. If they see me, they see my father's fortune, I - will have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love. Love above all.

  Nurse : Not Valentine and Sylvia.

  Viola De Lesseps : No! Not the artful postures of love, but love that overthrows life. Unbiddable, ungovernable, like a riot in the heart, and nothing to be done, come ruin or rapture. Love as there has never been in a play. I will have love. Or I will end my days as a...

  Nurse : As a nurse?

  Viola De Lesseps : Oh, but I will be Valentine and Sylvia too. Oh, good nurse, God save you and good night.

• Viola De Lesseps : I do not know to undress a man.

  William Shakespeare : It is strange to me, too.

• William Shakespeare : Can you love a fool?

  Viola De Lesseps : Can you love a player?

• 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.

• [Whispering at Viola's bedroom door] 

  Nurse : My lady, the house is stirring. It is a new day.

  Viola De Lesseps : It is a new WORLD.

• [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.

• 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.

• Queen Elizabeth : Playwrights teach us nothing about love. They make it pretty, they make it comical, or they make it lust, but they cannot make it true.

  Viola De Lesseps : Oh, but they can!

• Lord Wessex : I have spoken with your father.

  Viola De Lesseps : So, my lord? I speak with him every day.

• 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.

• Viola De Lesseps : I love you - beyond poetry.

• Viola De Lesseps : This is not life, Will. It is a stolen season.

• 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.

• Viola De Lesseps : Good morning, my lord. I see you are open for business - so let's to church.

• Viola de Lesseps : Nurse, as I love you and you love me, you will bind my breast and buy me a boy's wig.

• 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.

• Viola de Lesseps : I would stay asleep my whole life, if I could dream myself into a company of players.

• Viola De Lesseps : Good sir? I heard you were a poet. But a poet of no words?

• Viola De Lesseps : Stage love will never be true love while the law of the land has our heroines being played by pipsqueak boys in petticoats!

• 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.

• 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.

• 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!

• "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.

• "Thomas Kent" : But what of Lord Wessex?

  William Shakespeare : For one kiss, I would defy a thousand Wessexes.

• Viola De Lesseps : Oh, Will, as Thomas Kent my heart belongs to you. But, as Viola, the river divides us.

• Viola De Lesseps : When can we see another?

  Nurse : When the Queen commands it.

  Viola De Lesseps : Oh, to Playhouse! Nurse!

  Nurse : Be still. Playhouses are not for well born ladies.

  Viola De Lesseps : Oh, I'm not so well born!

  Nurse : Well moneyed is the same as well born. And well married is more so.

• "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?

• Viola De Lesseps : Do you intend to marry, my Lord?

  Lord Wessex : Your father should keep you better informed. He has bought me for you. He returns from his estate to see us marry two weeks from Saturday. You are allowed to show your pleasure.

• Viola De Lesseps : I love theater. To have stories acted for me by a company of fellows is in deed...

  Queen Elizabeth : They're not acted for you, they're acted for me. And?

  Viola De Lesseps : And I love poetry above all.

  Queen Elizabeth : Above Lord Wessex?

  Queen Elizabeth : [to Wessex]  My Lord, when you cannot find your wife, you better look for her at the Playhouse.

• Philip Henslowe : It's a woman.

  Tilney : This theater is closed. Notice will be posted!

  Philip Henslowe : No, I swear, I knew nothing of this.

  Viola De Lesseps : Nobody knew.

  John Webster : He did! I saw him kissin' her bubbies.

  Philip Henslowe : It is over.

• Viola De Lesseps : [that she, as Thomas Kent, is actually a woman]  Nobody knew.

  John Webster : [pointing to Will]  He did! I saw him kissing her bubbies.

• Hugh Fennyman : Master Kent, you have not yet dipped your wick.

  "Thomas Kent" : My wick?

• Viola De Lesseps : Did you like Proteus or Valentine best? Proteus for speaking. Valentine for looks.

  Nurse : Oh, I liked the dog for laughs.

• Lord Wessex : Will you defy your father and your Queen?

  Viola De Lesseps : The Queen has consented?

  Lord Wessex : She wants to inspect you. At Greenwich, come Sunday. Be submissive, modest, grateful, and brief.

• 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?