Joel Grey Quotes

I'm sort of nerdy, I liked Shakespeare and Chekhov and the classics.

I read Shakespeare when I was 14 because it's what we were taught.

There are a lot of theories about Shakespeare.

I studied English literature in the honors program, which means that you had to take courses in various centuries. You had to start with Old English, Middle English, and work your way toward the modern. I figured if I did that it would force me to read some of the things I might not read on my own.

Shakespeare didn't work at all for me.

I was taught Shakespeare brilliantly by an eccentric genius at Harrow named Jeremy Lemmon who made me want to be a writer.

My mother taught Shakespeare and used to act.

I've been with Shakespeare all my life.

I think it's about as likely Jane Austen was gay as that she was found out to be a man.

We believed that to understand literature, you had to understand its place in history and culture.

As a former English major, I have always been fascinated by the connections between literature and history.

It is doubtless one of Aristotle's great services that he conceived so clearly the truth that literature is a thing that grows and has a history.

I majored in Shakespearean studies at a very tiny school in Georgia.

I have a Bachelor of Arts in English, which means I had a lot of formal training in reading.

Really important books to me are the classics. I try very hard to read them well - you know, especially once I got serious about writing. So, reading Tolstoy several times - 'War and Peace,' 'The Kreutzer Sonata' - all those were really important to me.

I was an English major in college, and then I went to graduate school in English at the University of North Carolina for three years.

My master's degree was in English literature.

As an undergraduate I majored in British and American literature at Rice University.

Literature is news that stays news.

I think you need brains to do any Shakespeare with any authority. I could do Shakespeare, but not with any authority.

English dramatic literature is, of course, dominated by Shakespeare; and it is almost inevitable that an English reader should measure the value of other poetic drama by the standards which Shakespeare has already implanted in his mind.

I admire American literature, both contemporary and classic - 'Moby-Dick' is just about the best book in the world - and I admire British literature for its insistence on dealing with social class. It may have been an influence.

My life has included a study of Shakespeare and to me it's very natural, but I know that it's not always accessible to other people.

I was an English-literature major, and that's all about stories and narratives.

Literature is a far more ancient and viable thing than any social formation or state. And just as the state interferes in literature, literature has the right to interfere in the affairs of state.