58 Memorable Play Quotes

There’s something magical about the world of theater that transcends the stage and resonates within our hearts long after the final curtain call. Plays have a unique way of capturing the essence of human experience through powerful dialogue, poignant moments, and unforgettable characters. As we journey through these stories, certain lines stand out, etching themselves into our memories and often influencing our perspectives on life, love, and everything in between. In this blog post, we’ve curated a collection of the top 58 memorable play quotes that continue to inspire, provoke thought, and remind us of the enduring power of theater. Whether you're an aficionado of the dramatic arts or a casual admirer, these quotes are sure to ignite your passion and appreciation for the craft.

1. “Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

2. “Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.” - Tom Robbins

3. “The Play's the Thing, wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.” - William Shakespeare

4. “There is work that is work and there is play that is play; there is play that is work and work that is play. And in only one of these lies happiness.” - Gelett Burgess

5. “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” - Richard Lingard

6. “It is a happy talent to know how to play.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

7. “Educated men are so impressive!” - William Shakespeare

8. “It is interesting that Hindus, when they speak of the creation of the universe do not call it the work of God, they call it the play of God, the Vishnu lila, lila meaning play. And they look upon the whole manifestation of all the universes as a play, as a sport, as a kind of dance — lila perhaps being somewhat related to our word lilt” - Alan Watts

9. “I came up stairs into the world, for I was born in a cellar.” - William Congreve

10. “A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men.” - Anonymous

11. “In the past few decades quite a few people have suggested -- citing most often the offence of impossible proportions -- that Barbie dolls teach young girls to hate themselves. But the opposite may be true. British researchers recently found that girls between the ages of seven and eleven harbor surprisingly strong feelings of dislike for their Barbie dolls, with no other toy or brand name inspiring such a negative response from the children. The dolls "provoked rejection, hatred, and violence" and many girls preferred Barbie torture -- by cutting, burning, decapitating, or microwaving -- over other ways of playing with the doll. Reasons that the girls hated their Barbies included, somewhat poetically, the fact that they were 'plastic.' The researchers also noted that the girls never spoke of one single, special Barbie, but tended to talk about having a box full of anonymous Barbies. 'On a deeper level Barbie has become inanimate,' one of the researchers remarked. 'She has lost any individual warmth that she might have possessed if she were perceived as a singular person. This may go some way towards explaining the violence and torture.” - Eula Biss

12. “Life is more fun if you play games.” - Roald Dahl

13. “A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.” - L.P. Jacks

14. “This is the real secret of life -- to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.” - Alan Watts

15. “The boy planted his hands on his hips and a broad smile lit his face. "My name's Peter. Can I play too?” - Brom

16. “Go and play. Run around. Build something. Break something. Climb a tree. Get dirty. Get in some trouble. Have some fun.” - Brom

17. “Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!It seems she hangs upon the cheek of nightLike a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear,Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.So shows a snowy dove trooping with crowsAs yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,And, touching hers, make blessèd my rude hand.Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.” - William Shakespeare

18. “Against inebriation – and for drunkenness! Burn down the liquor stores, and replace them with playgrounds!” - CrimethInc.

19. “The critic leaves at curtain fall To find, in starting to review it, He scarcely saw the play at all For starting to review it.” - E.B. White

20. “You can't stop the futureYou can't rewind the pastThe only way to learn the secret...is to press play.” - Jay Asher

21. “The bowler approached the wicket at a lope, a trot, and then a run. He suddenly exploded in a flurry of arms and legs, out of which flew a ball.” - Douglas Adams

22. “Let us play hide and seek in a mountain which is like a women's back.” - Santosh Kalwar

23. “I love everybody. Each one plays the role they have to play...” - Meher Baba

24. “Very well. He'd lighten up. As a matter of fact, he felt as light as the bubbly froth that flew from the lips of the waves. Whatever else his long, unprecedented life might have been, it had been fun. Fun! If others should find that appraisal shallow, frivolous, so be it. To him, it seemed now to largely have been some form of play. And he vowed that in the future he would strive to keep that sense of play more in mind, for he'd grown convinced that play--more than piety, more than charity or vigilance--was what allowed human beings to transcend evil.” - Tom Robbins

25. “We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything, than when we are at play.” - Charles Schaefer

26. “As children get older, this incidental outdoor activity--say, while waiting to be called to eat--becomes less bumptious, physically and entails more loitering with others, sizing people up, flirting, talking, pushing, shoving and horseplay. Adolescents are always being criticized for this kind of loitering, but they can hardly grow up without it. The trouble comes when it is done not within society, but as a form of outlaw life.The requisite for any of these varieties of incidental play is not pretentious equipment of any sort, but rather space at an immediately convenient and interesting place. The play gets crowded out if sidewalks are too narrow relative to the total demands put on them. It is especially crowded out if the sidewalks also lack minor irregularities in building line. An immense amount of both loitering and play goes on in shallow sidewalk niches out of the line of moving pedestrian feet.” - Jane Jacobs

27. “The new light above my table is a great improvement. With all this darkness around me I feel less alone. (Pause.) In a way. (Pause.) I love to get up and move about in it, then back here to... (hesitates) ...me. (Pause.)” - Samuel Beckett

28. “How do you manage it, she said, at your age? I told her I'd been saving up for her all my life.” - Samuel Beckett

29. “Be again, be again. (Pause.) All that old misery. (Pause.) Once wasn't enough for you.” - Samuel Beckett

30. “I lay down across her with my face in her breasts and my hand on her. We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down, and from side to side.(Pause. Krapp's lips move. No sound.)Past midnight. Never knew such silence. The earth might be uninhabited.” - Samuel Beckett

31. “Henry: I usen't to need anyone, just to myself, stories, there was a great one about an old fellow called Bolton, I never finished it, I never finished any of them, I never finished anything, everything always went on for ever. (Pause.)” - Samuel Beckett

32. “Ada: And why life? (Pause.) Why life, Henry? (Pause.) Is there anyone about?Henry: Not a living soul.Ada: I thought as much. (Pause.) When we longed to have it to ourselves there was always someone. Now that it does not matter the place is deserted.” - Samuel Beckett

33. “The Aeon is a child at play with colored balls.(translation/paraphrase: Terence McKenna)” - Heraclitus

34. “Perhaps one never seems so much at one's ease as when one has to play a part.” - Oscar Wilde

35. “Man is a play station whereas a woman will always remain at an emotion station.” - Santosh Kalwar

36. “The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” - Phil Jackson

37. “Still, he was pleased to know that he could recall so much of the play and passed the rest of the journey pleasantly in reciting lines to himself, being careful not to snort.” - Diana Gabaldon

38. “A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.” - Francois Auguste De Chateaubriand

39. “Here is the vicious circle: if you feel separate from your organic life, you feel driven to survive; survival -going on living- thus becomes a duty and also a drag because you are not fully with it; because it does not quite come up to expectations, you continue to hope that it will, to crave for more time, to feel driven all the more to go on.” - Alan Wilson Watts

40. “If you have a rifle, hanging on the wall in the first act, it should fire in the last act”.” - Stanislavski, Constantin S.

41. “If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play” - John Cleese

42. “Yet she was so sweet. She wasn’t a hard-ass, wasn’t jaded after all that had been done to her. In bed, she was giving and generous. And she smiled a lot. She seemed to enjoy life.Whereas he’d been nothing but a giant pain in the ass, taking for granted everything that had been given to him. He’d had it so easy, while his parents had struggled to give him a good life so all he had to do was go out and live his dream.He and Savannah were as different as night and day. How could she tolerate being around him? He was nothing but a spoiled football player who craved the spotlight. He didn’t deserve to be sharing a bed with her. She needed someone who cared for her, who thought of nothing but her, who’d give up everything just to give her the kind of life she deserved.He sucked in a breath and realized it was time he made some serious life changes. It was time to go all in and stop hesitating about the things he really wanted in his career. In his life.It was time to start taking some chances.” - Jaci Burton

43. “She leaned against him, listening to his strong heartbeat as they cuddled together.Maybe he didn’t say all the right things, and maybe he didn’t do it all in the right way, but he was hers, and she was his, and they’d figure it all out together. Because she knew now that both of them were in this for the long haul, and that he’d be there for her no matter what.And that’s what counted the most.” - Jaci Burton

44. “LIfe is just a game of chance, a dance with fate if you let it be so. Or you could chose to play by your rules to win.” - Steven Redhead

45. “hornier than a bunny on ecstasy” - Kyle Adams

46. “It is time for a return to childhood, to simplicity, to running and climbing and laughing in the sunshine, to experiencing happiness instead of being trained for a lifetime of pursuing happiness. It is time to let children be children again.” - L.R.Knost

47. “It is not Atlas who carries the world on his shoulders, but woman; and sometimes she plays with it as with a ball.” - Henryk Sienkjewicz

48. “There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither.” - Alan Cohen

49. “It was a wonderful life. To have a stage play right in this room, with real people acting real parts.” - Jan Karon

50. “Friendship is constant in all other thingsSave in the office and affairs of love.Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues.Let every eye negotiate for itself,And trust no agent; for beauty is a witchAgainst whose charms faith melteth into blood.” - William Shakespeare

51. “Let me tell you: the only way to get rid of dragons is to have one of your own.” - Evgeny Shvarts

52. “Sir, he hath not fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts... (Act IV, Scene II)” - William Shakespeare

53. “Creators of history always play with our impotence and our ignorance.” - Dejan Stojanovic

54. “It is growing cold. Winter is putting footsteps in the meadow. What whiteness boasts that sun that comes into this wood! One would say milk-colored maidens are dancing on the petals of orchids. How coldly burns our sun! One would say its rays of light are shards of snow, one imagines the sun lives upon a snow crested peak on this day. One would say she is a woman who wears a gown of winter frost that blinds the eyes. Helplessness has weakened me. Wandering has wearied my legs.” - Roman Payne

55. “Those societies in which seriousness, tradition, conformity and adherence to long-established - often god-prescribed - ways of doing things are the strictly enforced rule, have always been the majority across time and throughout the world. Such people are not known for their sense of humour and lightness of touch; they rarely break a smile. To them, change is always suspect and usually damnable, and they hardly ever contribute to human development. By contrast, social, artistic and scientific progress as well as technological advance are most evident where the ruling culture and ideology give men and women permission to play, whether with ideas, beliefs, principles or materials. And where playful science changes people's understanding of the way the physical world works, political change, even revolution, is rarely far behind.” - Paul Kriwaczek

56. “Even our recreation was scheduled. There was no time to look for birds or wander into the nearby woods. We were put into teams and sent into violent pursuit of a helpless ball.” - Gloria Whelan

57. “For a child, it is in the simplicity of play that the complexity of life is sorted like puzzle pieces joined together to make sense of the world.” - L.R. Knost

58. “Glib tongues frill up their hash of knowledgefor mankind in polished speechesthat are no more than vaporous windsrustling the fallen leaves in autumn.” - Goethe