Top 100 Lear Quotes
#1. In his madness and his blindness he was Lear and Gloucester combined.
Susanna Clarke
#2. It crossed our minds early on that the more an audience cared - we were working before, on average, 240, live people. If you could get them caring - the more they cared, the harder they laughed.
Norman Lear
#3. When I was growing up my favorite show was 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show', and I loved all the stuff that Norman Lear did.
Ryan Murphy
#4. You're in the business - when you're a writer, producer, director - to get ratings.
Norman Lear
#5. There was a Young Person of Smyrna,
whose grandmother threatened to burn her;
But she seized on the cat,
and said, Granny, burn that!
You incongruous old woman of Smyrna!
Edward Lear
#6. When I closed in "King Lear" I went into a period of depression for about three weeks, and every actor I've talked to who's ever played a major, major Shakespeare role has done this.
Frank Langella
#7. There was an Old Person of Bray, Who sang through the whole of the day To his ducks and his pigs, whom he fed upon figs, That valuable Person of Bray.
Edward Lear
#8. We got ratings. It isn't that they won't quarrel with you, or say you're always right. But as long as you stay strong and the ratings are good and you're reasonable - I don't think we fought unreasonably. We basically won that right.
Norman Lear
#9. What is your name?" asked Lear.
Caius," said Kent.
And whence do you hail?"
From Bonking, sire."
Well, yes, lad, as do we all," said Lear, "but from what town?
Christopher Moore
#10. Two of the first plays I saw after I arrived in Britain were 'King Lear' in Liverpool, and 'Antony and Cleopatra' at Stratford. One was produced with hardly a backdrop and the other with gigantic scene changes. I was impressed by what connected the two: the words and their life beyond the stage.
Romesh Gunesekera
#11. I am not interested in releasing best of stuff and I have not given my permission. You release best of packages when you're a has-been and have nothing new to offer.
Amanda Lear
#12. People talk about the difference between radio acting, TV acting and stage acting, but I think it's all the same. For instance, when I played Vultan in 'Flash Gordon,' I put as much energy into it as I would with 'King Lear' - it's all part of the same thing.
Brian Blessed
#13. If it looks good, it will fly good.
Bill Lear
#14. It isn't difficult to leave King Lear or Macbeth, but once you have gone back to yourself, you want it to be the same self you have always been.
Paul Scofield
#15. Originally, with all the shows, we went looking for belly laughs.
Norman Lear
#16. I've been lucky to get some path-breaking films, which proved to be the turning point in my career. Be it 'Rock on!' 'The Last Lear' or 'Raajneeti,' directors started working in a different way.
Arjun Rampal
#17. That's the heart of it: My shows were not that controversial with the American people. They were controversial with the people who think for the American people.
Norman Lear
#18. Virgina Woolf versus Edward Lear."
"Christ Alive," said Billy. "Are those my only choices?"
"I went for Lear," said Leon. "Partly out of fidelity to the letter L. Partly because given the choice between nonsense and boojy wittering you blatantly have to choose nonsense.
China Mieville
#20. I hate to spread rumours, but what else can one do with them?
Amanda Lear
#21. To be human is necessarily to be a vulnerable risk-taker; to be a courageous human is to be good at it
Jonathan Lear
#22. The reason some men fear older women is they fear their own mortality.
Frances Lear
#23. You ain't never going to get rich that way, Johnson. And there's money in that dick. Lots of money.
James Lear
#24. When in doubt, discuss the weather. Some things never change.
Emma Lear
#25. Yet I am doubtful, for I am mainly ignorant. What place this is, and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments. Nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me,
For as I am a man, I think this lady
To be my child Cordelia.
William Shakespeare
#26. The actor is too prone to exaggerate his powers; he wants to play Hamlet when his appearance is more suitable to King Lear.
Sarah Bernhardt
#27. Life is made up of small pleasures. Happiness is made up of those tiny successes. The big ones come too infrequently. And if you don't collect all these tiny successes, the big ones don't really mean anything.
Norman Lear
#28. My favorite-ever version of 'King Lear' is the 1971 film by Peter Brooks. He has this enormous fur thing, and it adds enormous gravitas.
Ben Mendelsohn
#29. So we gravitated to shows and issues and causes that made people care.
Norman Lear
#30. Counterfeit Kings is the King Lear of space operas. Science fiction has a fresh, new, no-nonsense voice and his name is Adam Connell.
Steven-Elliot Altman
#31. Bat asks Goucher if his leg is good, and Goucher shrugs. "All right." "Good or all right?" "All right enough." Batliner has been through the ringer enough, so he gives Goucher some advice he hopes Goucher will heed, "Be brave enough to call it early.
Chris Lear
#33. When we are born, we cry that we are to come to this great stage of fools,' I quoted from Shakespeare's King Lear.
Brittainy C. Cherry
#34. Lear's daughters and their loathsome husbands are all deservedly slaughtered for their ill treatment of an aged ruler (one of the reasons that tragedy remains so huge in Asia)
Boris Johnson
#35. Even when they don't know who Nixon was, these shows will continue to play.
Norman Lear
#36. When I want to entertain entertainers, I call Jason Randal!
Norman Lear
#37. I used to think 'King Lear' was an analysis of insanity, but I don't really think it is. When Lear is supposed to be at his most insane, he is actually understanding the world for the first time.
Ian McKellen
#38. Shakespeare wrote all there is that we need to know about dementia in 'King Lear.'
Simon Callow
#39. [Lear] is the universal image of the unwisdom and destructiveness of paternal love at its most ineffectual, implacably persuaded of its own benignity, totally devoid of self-knowledge, and careening onward until it brings down the person it loves best, and its world as well.
Harold Bloom
#40. Kent. Who's there?
Fool. Marry, here's grace and a cod-piece; that's a wise man and a fool.
William Shakespeare
#41. I cannot heave my heart into my mouth. I love your majesty according to my bond; no more no less.
William Shakespeare
#42. Maybe they continued to agree with Archie Bunker - as I said earlier, you can't change people's minds, but you can get them to think.
Norman Lear
#43. I wanted to just do a one-act play for 26 minutes, with commercials at the beginning and end. For years, I couldn't get my way. They wanted to interrupt three times.
Norman Lear
#44. As far as getting my start, it was really Norman Lear, even aside from being on 'All in the Family.' He helped me get my start as a director. He was the one who said, 'Let him do 'Spinal Tap.' Let him give it a try,' because I had been trying for years to get that thing off the ground.
Rob Reiner
#45. There was a Young Lady of Poole, Whose soup was excessively cool; So she put it to boil, by the aid of some oil, That ingenious Young Lady of Poole.
Edward Lear
#46. O burn the house! You've murdered the husband, slaughtered the cattle, poisoned the well, raped the mother, killed the child - you must burn the house! You're soldiers - you must do your duty ... O burn the house! Burn the house! Burn the house!
Edward Bond
#48. Life goes on pretty much the same way. I've been working on a couple of films on the side. You may see some more. You may even see another television show.
Norman Lear
#50. The best of life is the exercise of ingenuity-in design, in finance, in flying, in business.
Bill Lear
#51. There was no real controversy with All In The Family. That came from the people on the business end.
Norman Lear
#52. Complaining about boring football is a little like complaining about the sad ending of King Lear: it misses the point somehow.
Nick Hornby
#53. I myself do not believe that the Torah is any more or less the revealed Word of God than are Dante's Commedia, Shakespeare's King Lear, or Tolstoy's novels, all works of comparable literary sublimity
Harold Bloom
#54. The establishment uses that rationale all the time, and that's why we do what we do. But leadership requires some understanding that you can say no. People have base instincts, but the transcendent also appeal to them.
Norman Lear
#55. Shakespeare without Othello, Lear, Macbeth and Hamlet would be all too much like Hamlet without the prince.
Brand Blanshard
#56. The evidence seems clear that those business which actively serve their many constitutencies in creative, morally thoughtful ways also, over the long run, serve their shareholders best. Companies do, infact, do well by doing good.
Norman Lear
#57. The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat ...
Edward Lear
#58. I feel like I've been on EastEnders all my life and now I'm playing King Lear.
Ian Holloway
#59. He wanted a James Lear novel: near to constant episodes of sexual encounters strung together with a bit of mystery, and maybe, for window-dressing, some self-discovery.
Heidi Cullinan
#60. And they brought an Owl, and a useful Cart, And a pound of Rice, and a CranberryTart, And a hive of silvery Bees. And they brought a Pig, and some green Jack-daws, And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws, and forty Bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree, And no end of Stilton Cheese.
Edward Lear
#61. The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!
Edward Lear
#62. There was a Young Person in pink, Who called out for something to drink; But they said, 'O my daughter, there's nothing but water!' Which vexed that Young Person in pink.
Edward Lear
#63. I am in a very unsettled condition, as the oyster said when they poured melted butter all over his back.
Edward Lear
#64. In this nation, leadership is dollars.
Norman Lear
#65. I do not see how it is possible for an intelligent human being to conclude that the Song of Solomon is the work of God, and that the tragedy of Lear was the work of an uninspired man.
Robert Green Ingersoll
#66. If I had written King Lear, I would regret it all my life afterwards. Because that work is so big, that its defects show as huge, its monstrous defects, things even minimal in between some scenes and their possible perfection. It's not the sun with spots; it's a broken greek statue.
Fernando Pessoa
#67. Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least; nor are those empty-hearted whose low sounds reverb no hollowness.
William Shakespeare
#69. Directing Skyfall was one of the best experiences of my professional life, but I have theatre and other commitments, including productions of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and King Lear, that need my complete focus over the next year and beyond.
Sam Mendes
#70. When awful darkness and silence reign Over the great Gromboolian plain, Through the long, long wintry nights;
Edward Lear
#71. It takes a long time to make a painter - even with a good artist's education - but without one it tries the patience of Job; it is a great thing if one does not go backward.
Edward Lear
#72. Grant me an old man's frenzy, Myself must I remake Till I am Timon and Lear Or that William Blake Who beat upon the wall Till Truth obeyed his call.
William Butler Yeats
#73. In a sport that demands compulsion, sometimes the hardest task is having the confidence to rest.
Chris Lear
#75. I think I'm going to have to get a flying license very soon, and maybe one of those Lear jets. It beats motorcycles all to hell.
Hunter S. Thompson
#76. They dined on mince, and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon; And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon.
Edward Lear
#77. I've made a dog's breakfast of English history, geography, 'King Lear,' and the English language in general.
Christopher Moore
#78. In typical circumstances, to have children who won't care for you in your dotage is to be King Lear. Disability changes the reciprocity equation.
Andrew Solomon
#79. I was much distressed by next door people who had twin babies and played the violin; but one of the twins died, and the other has eaten the fiddle, so all is peace.
Edward Lear
#80. Fucking really is one of those activities that "practice makes perfect".
James Lear
#81. Heaven blazing into the head: Tragedy wrought to its uttermost. Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages And all the drop-scenes drop at once Upon a hundred thousand stages It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.
William Butler Yeats
#82. As Shakespeare put it in 'King Lear,' the policeman who lashes the whore has a hot need to use her for the very offense for which he plies the lash.
Christopher Hitchens
#83. The Oresteia, King Lear, Dostoevsky's The Devils no less than the art of Giotto or the Passions of Bach, inquire into, dramatize, the relations of man and woman to the existence of the gods or of God.
George Steiner
#84. Our basest beggars are in the poorest thing superfluous: Allow not nature more than nature needs, man's life is cheap as beast's.
William Shakespeare
#85. I've tried to tell a story. For me, it is the best one.
Amanda Lear
#86. There was an Old Man with an owl, Who continued to bother and howl; He sate on a rail, and imbibed bitter ale, Which refreshed that Old Man and his owl.
Edward Lear
#87. Tell me, Mitch," said Bertrand, reading my thoughts, "is there anyone on this train that you do not want to fuck?"
"I'm not crazy about the dowager.
James Lear
#89. Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy laws my services are bound...
{His second motto, from King Lear by Shakespeare}
Carl Friedrich Gauss
#90. Who, or why, or which, or what, Is the Akhond of Swat?
Edward Lear
#91. I think that if Shakespeare had had access to CGI, he would have used it. Imagine Lear conjuring the storm and the lightning.
Julie White
#92. King Lear is undoubtedly the greatest play ever written by Shakespeare - or anybody else for that matter. Hamlet is certainly great, but it doesn't contain as many elements of humanity as we see in Lear.
Paul Scofield
#93. I think the greater responsibility, in terms of morality, is where leadership begins.
Norman Lear
#94. A lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity that ever were written.
Thomas Jefferson
#95. There was an old man with a beard, who said: 'It is just as I feared! Two owls and a hen, four larks and a wren have all built their nests in my beard.
Edward Lear
#96. There was an Old Man of the East, Who gave all his children a feast; But they all ate so much, and their conduct was such, That it killed that Old Man of the East.
Edward Lear
#97. In the area we're discussing, leadership begins on Madison Avenue, on the desks and in the offices of people who spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying what will get them ratings.
Norman Lear
#98. I think Shakespeare got drunk after he finished King Lear. That he had a ball writing it.
Louis Auchincloss
#99. TV that people will never see, that giant international corporations will never touch, will never pay your salary.
Norman Lear
#100. All performances are different. I don't think it's necessary to compare one with another. I am just me playing the role of Lear. You're bound to get a Holm approach to it, whatever that may be. I just got out there and did it. I'm very much a doer in my acting.
Ian Holm
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