Overheard

I don't enjoy watching Shakepeare and I wouldn't like to put other people through it . . . (Juliet) is the last part I would want to play. She's a weed.

Jane Horrocks, Evening Standard

What is good for the market is not necessarily good for building. In architecture, greed, not pride, is the worst of the seven deadly sins.

Lord St John, in the Royal Fine

Art Commission annual report

Warning. There will be smoking during this performance.

Notice on wall at Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario

Question: What is your most

unpleasant characteristic? Answer: Pretentiousness.

Sting, Q magazine

It was a great experience, but I never did learn to act and I think that will be quite obvious.

Lyle Lovett, jazz-country

singer, on his part in The Player,

Elle magazine

If you have this enormous talent, it's got you by the balls, it's a demon. You can't be a family man and a husband and a caring person and be that animal. Dickens wasn't that nice a guy.

Dustin Hoffman, Empire