Falstaff Quotes

“Shakespeare will not allow Falstaff to die upon stage. We see and hear the deaths of Hamlet, Cleopatra, Antony, Othello, and Lear. Iago is led away to die silently under torture. Macbeth dies offstage but he goes down fighting. Falstaff dies singing the Twenty-third Psalm, smiling upon his fingertips, playing with flowers, and crying aloud to God three or four times. That sounds more like pain than prayer.
We do not want Sir John Falstaff to die. And of course he does not. He is life itself.”
― Harold Bloom, Falstaff: Give Me Life

“But Hamlet is death's ambassador while Falstaff is the embassy of life.”
― Harold Bloom, Falstaff: Give Me Life

“The sea of affliction will soak his heart through.”
― Harold Bloom, Falstaff: Give Me Life

“Falstaff’s wistful self-portrait is poignant since it suggests his forlorn wish that he somehow could be a father to Hal. That longing has in it the seed of self-destruction.”
― Harold Bloom, Falstaff: Give Me Life