Hesther: I mean he's in pain, Martin. He's been in pain for most of his life. That much, at least, you know.
Dysart: Possibly.
Hesther: Possibly?!... That cut-off figure you just described must have been in pain for years.
Dysart: (doggedly) Possibly.
Hesther: And you can take it away.
Dysart: Still - possibly.
Hesther: Then that's surely enough. That simply has to be enough for you, surely?
Dysart: No!
Hesther: Why not?
Dysart: Because it's his.
Hesther: I don't understand.
Dysart: His pain. His own. He made it. 

(a pause, then earnestly) 

Look... to go through life and call it yours - your life - you first have to get your own pain. 

Pain that's unique to you.

You can't just dip into the common bin and say 'That's enough!'... He's done that.

All right, he's sick. He's full of misery and fear.

He was dangerous, and could be again, though I doubt it.

But that boy has known a passion more ferocious than I have felt in any second of my life, and let me tell you something: I envy it.
Hesther: You can't.
Dysart: (vehemently) Don't you see? That's the Accusation! 

That's what his stare has been saying to me all this time. 'At least I galloped! When did you?'

...  (simply) I'm jealous, Hesther. Jealous of Alan Strang.

Equus ~ Peter Shaffer

Dysart: (quietly) Can you think of anything worse one can do to anybody than take away their worship?

Hesther: Worship?

Dysart: Yes, that word again!

Hesther: Aren't you being a little extreme?

Dysart: Extremity's the point.

Hether: Worship isn't destructive, Martin. I know that.

Dysart: I don't. I only know it's the core of his life. What else has he got? 

Think about him. He can hardly read.

He knows no physics or engineering to make the world real for him.

No paintings to show him how others have enjoyed it. 

No music except television jingles. No history except tales from a desperate mother. 

No friends. Not one kid to give him a joke, or make him know himself more moderately. 

He's a modern citizen for whom society doesn't exist.

He lives one hour every three weeks - howling in a mist. 

And after the service kneels to a slave who stands over him obviously and unthrowably his master. 

With my body I thee worship!... Many men have less vital relationships with their wives.

Equus ~ Peter Shaffer

The Normal is the indispensable, murderous God of Health, and I am his Priest. My tools are very delicate. My compassion is honest. I have honestly assisted children in this room. I have talked away terrors and relieved many agonies. But also - beyond question - I have cut from them parts of individuality repugnant to this God, in both aspects. Parts sacred to rarer and more wonderful Gods. And at what length... sacrifices to Zeus took at the most, surely, sixty seconds each. Sacrifices to the Normal can take as long as sixty months.

Dysart, Equus ~ Peter Shaffer

The Normal is the good smile in a child's eyes - all right.
It is also the dead stare in a million adults.
It both sustains and kills - like a God.
It is the Ordinary made beautiful: it is also the Average made lethal.

Dysart, Equus ~ Peter Shaffer

Tragedy obviously does not lie in a conflict of Right and Wrong, but in a collision between two different kinds of Right.

Peter Shaffer about Equus

Reputation is an idle, and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.

Iago, Act 2, Scene 3, Othello ~ William Shakespeare

The Inevitable is what will seem to happen to you purely by chance.

The Real is what will strike you as really absurd.

Unless you are certain you are dreaming, it is certainly a dream of your own.

Unless you exclaim - 'There must be some mistake' - you must be mistaken.

An Actor, Act One, Stuff Happens ~ David Hare

When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;
Of one, not easily jealous, but being wrought
Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe

Othello, Act 5, Scene 2, Othello ~ William Shakespeare

OTHELLO: She's like a liar gone to burning hell,
'Twas I that killed her.
EMILIA: O the more angel she,
And you the blacker devil.
OTHELLO: She turned to folly; and she was a whore.
EMILIA: Thou dost belie her, and thou art a devil.
OTHELLO: She was false as water.
EMILIA: Thou art rash as fire, to say
That she was false. O she was heavenly true.

Act 5, Scene 2, Othello ~ William Shakespeare

They are not jealous for the cause,
But jealous for they're are jealous. It is a monster
Begot upon itself, born on itself.

Emilia, Act 3, Scene 4, Othello ~ William Shakespeare

I should be wise, for honesty's a fool,
and loses what it works for.

Iago, Act 3, Scene 3, Othello ~ William Shakespeare

I had been happy, if the general camp,
Pioners and all, had tasted her sweet body,
So I had nothing known.

Othello, Act 3, Scene 3, Othello ~ William Shakespeare

O beware my lord of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss
Who certain of his fate loves not his wronger,
But O, what damned minutes tells he o'ver
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet fondly loves.

Iago, Act 3, Scene 3, Othello ~ William Shakespeare

Men should be what they seem;
Or those that be not, would they might seem none.

Iago, Act 3, Scene 3, Othello ~ William Shakespeare

Perdition catch my soul.
But I do love thee; and when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.

Othello, Act 3, Scene 3, Othello ~ William Shakespeare

Oh, I'm not going to be hypocritical, I'm going to be honestly critical about it!

Blanche, A Streetcar Named Desire ~ Tennessee Williams

They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks an get off at - Elysian Fields!

Blanche, A Streetcar Named Desire ~ Tennessee Williams

Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.

Hamlet ~ William Shakespeare

Tut, I have lost myself, I am not here.
This is not Romeo, he is some other where.

Romeo, Romeo and Juliet ~ William Shakespeare

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
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, Act V, Scene V, Macbeth ~ William Shakespeare