Romeo and Juliet Quotes

[first lines]

Narrator: Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene. From ancient grudge, break to new mutiny, where civil blood, makes civil hands unclean. And, so the Prince has called a tournament, to keep the battle from the city streets. Now, rival Capulets and Montagues, they try their strength to gain the royal ring.

Benvolio: Tybalt, I do but keep the peace. Put up your sword or manage it to part these men with me.

Tybalt: What? Do you draw your sword and talk of peace? I hate the word. As I hate hell! All Montagues and thee.

Benvolio: Good afternoon, my cousin.

Romeo: Is it so? I thought it should be night.

Benvolio: Not much past four.

Romeo: I am sad, the hours seem long.

Benvolio: What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?

Romeo: I lack the thing, which if I had it, would make them short.

Benvolio: I see. You're in love.

Benvolio: Love is a harsh tyrant where he rules.

Romeo: Love is smoke, raised on a fume of sighs, a madness drenched in syrup and *choked* with rage.

Benvolio: May I not know who it is you love?

Romeo: I love a woman.

Benvolio: That much I found unaided.

Romeo: Who loves me not.

Juliet: What is it, mother?

Lady Capulet: Juliet, you are a woman now.

Nurse: Not a woman.

Lady Capulet: Oh, she's nearly a woman.

Nurse: Nearly, but, not yet.

Lady Capulet: Can you love the man?

Juliet: I hardly know him.

Lady Capulet: Then learn to know him at the feast tonight. Seek how you feel. Study his eyes and read the message there. See - if you can be happy with him.

Mercutio: Gentle Romeo, we must see you dance.

Romeo: Not I, Mercutio. You have the dancing shoes and dancing feet to fill them. My soul is made of lead. It sticks me to the ground and cannot move.

Mercutio: You are a lover. Borrow cupid's wings and fly!

Romeo: I dreamed a dream last night.

Mercutio: And so did I.

Romeo: Well, what was yours?

Mercutio: That dreamers often lie.

Romeo: In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

Mercutio: O, then, I see Queen Mab has been with you. She is the fairies' midwife and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone on the fore-finger of an alderman and drawn with a team of little atomies athwart men's noses as they lie asleep. Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut. And in this state she gallops night by night through lovers' brains and then they dream of love. O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight. O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees. O'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream.

Romeo: Peace, peace, Mercutio! Enough. You talk of nothing.

Mercutio: True. I talk of dreams - which are the children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy, which is as thin of substance as the air and more inconstant than the wind.

Romeo: Come. Let us brave our fears and steer our course - whatever it may prove.

Mercutio: On, lusty gentlemen!

Romeo: O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night like a fine jewel in a Ethiope's ear. Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear! So shows the snowy dove trooping with crows, as yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.

Benvolio: But, what of your love - Rosaline?

Romeo: Did my heart love till now? Forswear the sight. I never saw true beauty till this night.

Tybalt: I'll not endure it.

Lord Capulet: You will endure it! For I say you will. Am I master here, or you? You'll make a mutiny among the guests! You will set cock-a-hoop! You'll be the man!

Tybalt: Uncle, it is a shame!

Lord Capulet: Go to, go to. You shall contrary in me! You are a princox!

Romeo: If I profane with my unworthiest hand, This holy shrine: my lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand, to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Juliet: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much. Which mannerly devotion shows in this, for saints have hands do touch. Palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

Romeo: Have not saints lips and holy palmers too?

Juliet: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

Romeo: O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do. They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

Juliet: But, Saints do not move their palms for prayers' sake.

Romeo: Then move not. While my prayer's effect I take.

[kiss]

Romeo: Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.

Juliet: Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

Romeo: Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again.

[kiss]

Juliet: Who is that gentleman going through the door?

Nurse: His name is Romeo - and a Montague. The only son of your great enemy.

Juliet: My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown and known too late!

Juliet: Why have you come? This place death if any of my kinsmen find thee here.

Romeo: With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls. For stony limits cannot hold love out, And what love can do that dares love attempt; therefore, thy kinsmen are no stop to me.

Romeo: Lady, by yonder moon, I swear, that tips with silver all the fruit-tree tops...

Juliet: O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in his circled orb, Lest that your love prove likewise variable.

Romeo: What shall I swear by?

Juliet: Do not swear at all. Listen hard, are we too rash, too unadvised, too quick?

Romeo: No. For this bud of love, by summer's breath, will prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. I promise.

Juliet: Go and Good night! And let sweet rest come to you heart and mind within my breast!

Romeo: O, will you leave me so unsatisfied?

Juliet: What satisfaction will you have to-night?

Romeo: The exchange of your love's faith for a vow for mine.

Juliet: I gave you mine before you didst request it.

Juliet: I have forgotten why I called you back.

Romeo: Let me stand here till you remember it.

Juliet: I shall forget, to have thee still stand - remembering how I love thy company.

Romeo: And I'll still stay, to have thee still forget, forgetting any other home but this.

Juliet: Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow - that is to say good night till it be morrow.

Romeo: Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!

Friar Laurence: God pardon sin! Were you with Rosaline? I pray you were not playing Satan's game.

Romeo: With Rosaline? I have forgot the name.

Mercutio: Alas poor Romeo! He is already dead.

Benvolio: Why? Who and what is Tybalt that he should be so sure of it?

Mercutio: More than prince of cats, I can tell you now. He fights like a music-player, all precision and keeps his time and distance, perfectly played, with one and two and three and in your chest. He's a gentleman and a duelist and none can fight him and live to tell the tale.

Nurse: Why was the man so rude? He liked to use his tongue as a flame to wound a poor old woman.

Romeo: He's much enamored by the sound of his own voice.

Nurse: And you stand by and suffer such a knave to use me at his pleasure?

Romeo: If I knew any man to use you for his pleasure, my weapon would be quickly out, I swear.

Nurse: Now, before God, I'm so vexed. Every part about me quivers.

Nurse: There's one thing more.

Romeo: What is it?

Nurse: There is a nobleman in town, one, Paris, who plans to marry and lie with her.

Romeo: Does she like him?

Nurse: Never! Should just as soon lay with a stinking toad! Her thoughts are with you.

Nurse: I'm so weary. Let me rest awhile. O, my bones ache! After the day I had!

Juliet: I would exchange my bones for all your news. Please, speak, I pray you! Dear sweet Nurse, do tell!

Nurse: What's the rush? A minutes patience, please! Can you not see I'm out of breath?

Juliet: How are you out of breath, when you have breath to say to me that you are out of breath?

Mercutio: Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk this way?

[draws his sword]

Tybalt: What would you want with me?

Mercutio: Good king of cats, just one of your nine lives.

Romeo: Have courage, man. The wound cannot be much.

Mercutio: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve. Ask for me to-morrow, you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered. I warrant for this world. What devil came you between us? He stabbed me under your arm.

Romeo: I thought all for the best.

Mercutio: The best intentions pave the way to Hell. Down with the Montagues and Capulets whose angry wars have stolen all my days. A plague on both your houses.

Friar Laurence: His judgment has more pity than you dread. He seeks to have you banished and not dead.

Romeo: Not banishment. Be merciful, say 'death.' For exile hasn't more terror in his look, much more than death. Do not say 'banishment!'

Friar Laurence: All he asks is that you leave Verona. It's not so much. The world is broad and wide.

Romeo: There is no world beyond the city's walls - just purgatory, torture, hell itself! And exile is another word for death. The Prince's kindness is a golden axe that cuts my head off!

Friar Laurence: Rude, unthankful boy! The Prince, in gentleness, overturns the law! Well, this is sweet mercy and you seest it not?

Romeo: 'Tis torture - and not mercy! Heaven is here, where Juliet lives. And every cat and dog and little mouse, every unworthy thing, Living here in heaven and may look on her; but, Romeo may not!

Lord Capulet: Do you want legal offspring from our loins? With Tybalt dead and all our line at risk, young Juliet is the only living coarse to which our blood can flow.

Lady Capulet: You know I do.

Lord Capulet: Well, then, we shall take action when we may. We shall strike while the iron is hot.

Juliet: Must you be gone? It's not really the dawn. You heard the nightingale and not a lark, I promise. She sings each night sitting in yonder tree. Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

Romeo: It was the lark, the herald of the morn. No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks do lace the severing clouds in yonder east. Night's candles are burnt out and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

Juliet: I do not think the light is daylight yet.

[they kiss]

Romeo: I am content, if you would have it so. I have more to stay, than will to go. Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so. How am I with you and say it is not day.

Juliet: [hears birds chirping] It is, it is! Go, now. Be gone, away! It is the lark that sings so out of tune, of horrid discords and unpleasant sharps. O, hurry now! More light and light it grows.

Romeo: More light and light; more dark and dark our woes!

Juliet: Do you believe we'll meet again?

Romeo: I do not doubt it.

Juliet: If God would only free me of foreboding. I think I see you, there you are below, As still and pale as dead men are in tombs.

Romeo: So, you did love in dawn's drab light. All worries make us pale. So, adieu.

Apothecary: My poverty, not my will, consents.

Romeo: I pay your poverty and not your will.

Romeo: Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide. Here's to my love!

[drinks the poison]

Romeo: O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick.

Juliet: I'll be brief. O happy dagger! This is thy sheath.

[Stabs herself]

Juliet: There rust and let me die.

[last lines]

Narrator: The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head and join with all in grieving for the dead. For never was a story of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

Nurse: You would speak well of him that killed your cousin?

Juliet: Should I speak ill of him that is my husband?