Sophokles
Elektra : I ask this one thing: / let me go mad in my own way. — Sophokles, Electra (Greek Tragedy in New Translations) Trans. Anne Carson (Oxford University Press, April 19, 2001)
Category: Dramaturgy
William Shakespeare
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,As I foretold you, were all spirits andAre melted into air, into thin air:And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,The solemn temples, the great globe itself,Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolveAnd, like this insubstantial pageant faded,Leave not a rack behind. We… Continue reading William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
With fairest flowersWhilst summer lasts and I live here, Fidele,I’ll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lackThe flower that’s like thy face, pale primrose, norThe azured harebell, like thy veins, no, norThe leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,Out-sweeten’d not thy breath: the ruddock would,With charitable bill,–O bill, sore-shamingThose rich-left heirs that let their… Continue reading William Shakespeare
Tom Stoppard
Death followed by eternity the worst of both worlds. It is a terrible thought. ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. (Grove Press; Reprint edition January 21, 1994) Oribinally published 1966.
William Shakespeare
Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires. — William Shakespeare, Macbeth: Act I, Scene vi (1606)
Sarah Ruhl
I would like to curl up and become a small thing. About this big. And still. Very still. Have you ever become so melancholy, that you wanted to fit in the palm of your beloved’s hand? And lie there, for fortnights, or decades, or the length of time between stars? In complete silence? — Sarah… Continue reading Sarah Ruhl
Tom Stoppard
Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one, a moment, in childhood, when it first occurred to you that you don’t go on forever. It must have been shattering, stamped into one’s memory. And yet I can’t remember it. It never occurred to me at all. We… Continue reading Tom Stoppard
T.S. Eliot
We die to each other daily.What we know of other peopleIs only our memory of the momentsDuring which we knew them. And they have changed since then.To pretend that they and we are the sameIs a useful and convenient social conventionWhich must sometimes broken. We must also rememberThat at every meeting we are meeting a… Continue reading T.S. Eliot
Tennessee Williams
‘I’ll tell you what I want. Magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misinterpret things to them. I don’t tell the truth. I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it! – Don’t turn the light on!’ ― Tennessee Williams,… Continue reading Tennessee Williams
William Shakespeare
O, hereWill I set up my everlasting rest,And shake the yoke of inauspicious starsFrom this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O youThe doors of breath, seal with a righteous kissA dateless bargain to engrossing death! — William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act V, Scene iii
The Vale of Soul-Making 