Young Writers Society

I'm writing a mystery novel that uses shakespeare quotes as its primary source of clues and I was wondering if anyone could help me find any interesting ones, particularly partaining to death, dying, blood, internal organs, etc.

I need quotes all over the spectrum, from funny, to moving, to downright scary, both prominent and obscure (heck, one of the quotes i've already got is from Titus Andronicus, and who even knows what that's about?).

Thanks,
~®®§

Et tu, Brute? Have that one, don't you, if merely for its connotations of double-crossing? ^_~

[...]the foul
fiend hath led through fire and through flame, and
through ford and whirlipool e'er bog and quagmire;
that hath laid knives under his pillow, and halters
in his pew; set ratsbane by his porridge; made film
proud of heart, to ride on a bay trotting-horse over
four-inched bridges, to course his own shadow for a
traitor.

The above, from King Lear - one of my favourite scenes.

[url=http://www.users.totalise.co.uk/~tmd/william.htm#death]"Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven"
Henry IV, Act v, Sc.4[/url]
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[url=http://www.online-literature.com/quotes/quotation_search.php?author=William%20Shakespeare]"Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange."
The Tempest. ACT I Scene 2. [/url]
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[url=http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/william_shakespeare.html]"As he was valiant, I honour him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him."
Julius Caesar ACT III Scene 3[/url]
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Google is my best friend. Are these helpful?

I think this is from King Lear: Out, vile jelly!

It's talking about eyes, cos someone gets his eyes plucked out.

Macbeth: Is that a dagger I see before me?

Twelfth Night: Wilt thou go hunt . . . the hart?

That last one's a pun on "hart" meaning deer, and "heart."

Twelfth Night: Come away, come away, death.

Random ones which I've heard but can't place (not just about death or blood 'n' guts):

The play is the thing!

How not sot!

. . . baited with all unmuzzl'd thoughts . .

Once more into the breach!

Something rotten in the state of Denmark.

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

There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

What light from yonder window breaks?

Palm to palm is holy palmer's kiss.

ACK! Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, sweet Romeo? I only ever use that one sarcastically, but your choice.

Personal fav: [i]If we shadows have offended / Think but this, and all is mended / That you have but slumbered here / Whilst these visions did appear.

I don't know if you can use these, but there you have them. That's a good idea, using quotes as clues. Hope the writing of it goes well and all.

Hamlet: To die, to sleep...must give us pause when we have shuffled off this mortal coil..

Pardon me - from memory.

Or Puck: The King doth keep his revels here tonight/take heed the Queen come not within his sight/for Oberon is passing fell and wrath...


Puck has the most impish remarks; always fun to recall - though perhaps not brilliant for murder clues?

Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it; he died
As one that had been studied in his death
To throw away the dearest thing he owed,
As 't were a careless trifle.
(Macbeth I iv)

Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under 't.
(Macbeth I v)

Glamis hath murdered sleep, and there Cawdor
Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more!
(Macbeth II ii)

Lady Macbeth: Things without all remedy
Should be without regard; what's done is done.
Macbeth: We have scotched the snake, not killed it;
She'll close and be herself, while our poor malice
Remains in danger of her former tooth.
(Macbeth III ii)

Pardon the excess of Macbeth quotes; I just read it for English class, so I's got's Scotland on the besides, it's loaded with disease imagery, so you can't really go wrong there ^_^

Hope that helps!

Imp, not to show you up, but the whole of that short Hamlet quote is:

"To die, to sleep
To sleep perchance to dream
Ay, there's the rub
For in that sleep of death
What dreams may come
When we have shuffled off
This mortal coil
Must give us pause."

(can't guarantee the spacing, but I LOVE that one!)

Also, here's a cool Shakespeare website I found, it's got all of his famous (and some not-so-famous) monologues and soliloquies. Hope it helps!
http://www.shakespeare-monologues.org/

gyrfalcon wrote:Imp, not to show you up, but the whole of that short Hamlet quote is:

"To die, to sleep
To sleep perchance to dream
Ay, there's the rub
For in that sleep of death
What dreams may come
When we have shuffled off
This mortal coil
Must give us pause."

(can't guarantee the spacing, but I LOVE that one!)

Also, here's a cool Shakespeare website I found, it's got all of his famous (and some not-so-famous) monologues and soliloquies. Hope it helps!
http://www.shakespeare-monologues.org/

Ha, no - not at all, Gyr. ^_^ I'm glad you could quote it a bit more fully than I could.

I have tons of quotes in this head of mine, here are just some.

GLOUCESTER: Thus sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud;
And after summer evermore succeeds
Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold:
So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.
- Henry VI, II, iv

QUEEN MARGARET: Small curs are not regarded when they grin;
But great men tremble when the lion roars.
- Henry VI, III, i

WARWICK: Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh
And sees fast by a butcher with an axe,
But will suspect 'twas he that made the slaughter?
- Henry VI, III, ii

SUFFOLK: Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan,
I would invent as bitter-searching terms,
As curst, as harsh and horrible to hear,
Deliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth,
With full as many signs of deadly hate,
As lean-faced Envy in her loathsome cave.
- Henry VI, III, ii

CADE: Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled o'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings: but I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since.
- Henry VI, IV, ii

PROTEUS: O heaven! were man
But constant, he were perfect. That one error
Fills him with faults; makes him run through all the sins:
Inconstancy falls off ere it begins.
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona, V, iv

GLOUCESTER: Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barded steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
- Richard III, I, i

GLOUCESTER: Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams.
- Richard III, I, i

CLARENCE: Lord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!
What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
Ten thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea:
Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
Which woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.
- Richard III, I, iv

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE: For they say every why hath a wherefore.
- The Comedy of Errors, II, ii

HORTENSIO: Faith, as you say, there's small choice in rotten apples.
- The Taming of the Shrew, I, i

WIDOW: He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.
- The Taming of the Shrew, V, ii

BOTTOM: A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac.
- A Midsummer Night's Dream, III, i

LADY MACBETH: My hands are of your colour; but I shame
To wear a heart so white.
- Macbeth, II, ii

CLEOPATRA: His legs bestrid the ocean: his rear'd arm
Crested the world: his voice was propertied
As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,
He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,
There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas
That grew the more by reaping: his delights
Were dolphin-like; they show'd his back above
The element they lived in: in his livery
Walk'd crowns and crownets; realms and islands were
As plates dropp'd from his pocket.
- Antony and Cleopatra

Oy.


...CL wins. ^_^

*bows* Richard III (aka GLOUCESTER) ROCKS!!!!

But why didn't you put donw any of his battle of wits with Lady Anne? *pouts* Pretty please! It's my favoirte!

"Was ever woman in this humor wooed?
Was ever woman in this humor won?"

One of my favourite quotes comes from Sonnet 116:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
admit impediments. Love is not love
that alters when it alteration finds,
or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

[this entire sonnet is lovely actually, but that's my favourite part]

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. (Macbeth, V:v:19)

We are such stuff
As dreams are made on and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep... (The Tempest, IV:i:156-7)

The lady doth protest too much, methinks. (Hamlet, III:ii:239)

Oh villain, villain, smiling damned villain! (Hamlet, I:v:106)

Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't (Hamlet II:ii:206)

And you can find loads more here: http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/

Hope that helps

Thank you guys so much! I've read through some of them and this is exactly what I need.

Thanks,
~®®§

'I kissed thee ere I killed thee.
No way but this.
Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.'

That's from Othello and spoken by Othello to Desdemona.