“But what do you think, my lady?''I think that she must be cruel if she wants to be loved,' Gertrude explained. ' For once a lady succumbs to the man's desire, he rejects her as unworthy of it.'...Was love like a hunger, easily satisfied by feeding? Or did it grow by what it fed on?”

“Only a foolish man will wed her who comes easily to his bed.”

“Can the flowers refuse to grow, or the birds decline to sing again just because the winter was harsh?No--but I don't know how they do it, how they keep growing”

“What is a man's life but a prelude to his death? And what is death but a long sleep, a most welcome forgetfulness.”

“Lord Hamlet, It seems you see all women as deceivers, be they beautiful or ugly. Perhaps the fault lies in the man who trust only his sight and is a slave to his base desire!”

“There is too much singing and dancing, such lightness as loosens the restraints of virtue,' she complained, her white curls quivering. 'When I was young we held to the courtly ways, but nowadays the world is running all to ruin.”

“Alone in my chamber, I fairly trembled with excitement. How could it be that I, who had never been kissed before, had kissed the Prince of Denmark himself, not once but many times? Did he really speak to me of love? It was beyond belief that I, humble Ophelia, should be wooed by Prince Hamlet. Surely I had imagined it.”