We loved your play.We only have problems with your main character, the second act and the ending.

-Anonymous
  Fan's comment to playwright  Wendy Wasserstein on The Heidi Chronicles. Quoted in the NewYork Times, 24  Jan1991.

Coldly, sadly descends The autumn evening. The field Strewn with its dank yellow drifts Of withered leaves, and the elms, Fade into dimness apace, Silent;öhardlya shout From a few boys late at their play!

-Arnold, Matthew
  New Poems,'Rugby Chapel, November1857'.

You have now done your work and may go play, unless you will fall out amongst yourselves.

-Astley, SirJacob
  Remark to his Parliamentarian captors, Mar. Quoted in Samuel Rawson Gardiner History of the Great Civil War,1642^9 (1911), vol.3.

Acta est fabula. The play is over.

-Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
AD 14  Last words, attributed. In Suetonius  Augustus, section 99.1, the scene of his death-bed is described:'He summoned a group of friends and asked:'Have I played my part in the farce of life well enough?'adding the verse:'If it was any good, please applaud for the play, and send us with pleasure on our way'.'

Let us have no ranting tragedies. Too many charactersöNot a tolerable woman's part in the play.

-Austen,Jane
  Mansfield Park, ch.14.

Darling, they've absolutely ruined your perfectly dreadful play!

-Bankhead,Tallulah
  Greeting Tennessee Williams at the film premi e' re of his play Orpheus Descending. Quoted in Peter Hay Broadway Anecdotes.

What a polite game tennis is. The chief word in it seems to be 'sorry'and admiration of each other's play crosses the net as frequently as the ball.

-Barrie, SirJ(ames) M(atthew)
Quoted in Colin  Jarman The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

Soisthisgreat and widesea, whereinarethings creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein. These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Psalms104:25^7.

Where's the stage and what's the play?

-Booth,Junius Brutus
Attributed, on being found drunk backstage shortly before making his first entrance.

The winter wind is loud and wild, Come close to me, my darling child; Forsake thy books, and mateless play; And, while the night isgathering grey, We'll talk its pensive hours away. Brooke

-Bronte«  , EmilyJane
  'Faith and Despondency', in Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.

Better than a play.

-Charles II
  Commenting on the debates in the House of Lords over the Divorce Bill. Quoted in  A Bryant King Charles II (1931).

   Courtship to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play.

-Congreve,William
  Bellmore to Belinda. The Old Bachelor, act 5, sc.10.

It is as if Homer not only chronicled the siege of Troy, but conducted the siege as well. As if Shakespeare set his play writing aside to lead the English against the Armada.

-Cuomo, Mario Matthew
  Tribute to Lincoln's literary and political genius. In the New York Times,18 Nov.

   Damn them, see how the rascals use me! They will not let my play run, and yet they steal my thunder!

-Dennis,John
  Attributed, when watching a production of Macbeth that featured a thunder machine he had designed for use in his own play  Appius and Virginia, which had been denied a long run. Said to be the origin of the phrase'to steal one's thunder'.

If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z.Work is x ; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.

-Einstein, Albert
  In the Observer,15  Jan.

If she can stand it, I can. Play it!

-Epstein,JuliusJ
  Humphrey Bogart as Rick in Casablanca (with Philip G Epstein and HowardKoch). The line is commonly rendered'Play it again, Sam', a conflationwith an earlier line of IngridBergman, 'Play it, Sam. Play  As Time Goes By.'

It signifies nothing to play well and lose.

-Fyleman, Rose
  Quoted in Colin  Jarman The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

Do you know how they are going to decide the Shakespeare^Bacon dispute? Theyare going to dig up Shakespeareand dig up Bacon; theyaregoing toget Tree to recite Hamlet to them. And the one who turns in his coffin will be the author of the play.

-Gilbert, Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck)
Letter.

It's taken me all my life to learn what not to play.

-Gillespie, Dizzy (John Birks)
Quoted in N Hentoff  Jazz Is (1978).

Not only will I not play it, but if Rex Harrison doesn't do it, I won't even go to see it.

-Grant, Cary pseudonym of  Archibald Leach
c.1963  Response when offered the role of Professor Henry Higgins in the film of My Fair Lady.  Attributed.