Romeo and Juliet - Key Quotations
Prologue
“A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life”
Act 1 Scene 1
Romeo tries to explain his emotional turmoil created by his unrequited love for Rosaline:
“Feather of lead”
Act 1 Scene 2
Capulet tells Paris that Juliet is not yet ready to be a bride:
“My child is yet a stranger in the world”
Act 1 Scene 3
Lady Capulet gives Juliet love advice:
“This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
To beautify him, only lacks a cover.”
Act 1 Scene 4
Romeo tells Mercutio his views on love:
“It is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like
thorn.”
Act 1 Scene 5
Romeo spots Juliet at the Capulet Ball:
“O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!”
“Did my heart love til now?”
Act 1 Scene 5
Tybalt vows revenge on Romeo:
“I will withdraw, But this intrusion shall,
Now seeming sweet, convert to bitterest gall!”
Act 1 Scene 5
Romeo and Juliet share a sonnet and hide behind the safety of their religious diction:
Juliet: “Saints do not move, though grant for
prayers’ sake.”
Romeo: “Then move not, while my prayer’s
effect I take.”
Act 1 Scene 5
Juliet wants to know who she has fallen in love with:
“If he be married,
My grave is like to be my wedding bed.”
When she finds out he’s the only son of her enemy, she realises it’s too late as she’s already in
love with him:
“My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!”
Act 2 Scene 2
Juliet does not care if Romeo is her enemy as she loves and wants him. She asks him to choose
her over their families’ feud:
“Deny thy father and refuse thy name”
Act 2 Scene 3
Friar Lawrence agrees to marry Romeo and Juliet in order to end the feud between their
families:
“For this alliance may so happy prove
To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.”
Act 2 Scene 6
Friar Lawrence warns Romeo that passionate love can be dangerous:
“These violent delights have violent ends”
Act 3 Scene 1
Romeo refuses to fight Tybalt as they are now family so Mercutio steps in and is mortally
wounded:
“Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a
grave man”
Act 3 Scene 5
Juliet opposes her father’s decision to have her married to Paris and her mother is
unsupportive:
“I would the fool were married to her grave!”
Lord Capulet is deeply angered by Juliet’s refusal to follow his instructions:
“get thee to church o’ Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face!”
Act 4 Scene 1
Juliet seeks help from Friar Lawrence as she is suicidal at the thought of marrying Paris:
“I long to die If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.”
Act 4 Scene 5
Lord Capulet shows his tender side when he believes Juliet is dead:
“My child, my only life!
Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!”
Act 5 Scene 3
Believing Juliet to be dead, Romeo resolves to kill himself so that they are no longer apart:
“Here, here will I remain,
With worms that are thy chambermaids.”
Juliet wakes up and is devastated to find the recently deceased Romeo:
“Thy lips are warm”
and kills herself.
The feud is resolved when both families realise they have lost their children and the play ends
peacefully but sadly:
Prince: “The sun for sorrow will not show his
head.”