Twelfth Night Quotes

Question 1

‘Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.’

Answer 1

• Feste

Themes: Class, The Role of the Fool, Wit and Wordplay

Question 2

‘Be not afraid not of greatness: Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em.’

Answer 2

• Malvolio

Themes: Jokes and Trickery, Physical comedy,

Question 3

‘Go hang yourselves all! You are idle, shallow things; I am not of your element.’

Answer 3

• Malvolio to Feste, Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, Maria, Fabien

Themes: Madness, Deception, Jokes and Trickery, Dark Undercurrents, Role of the Comic Villain

Question 4

‘Tell me what a drunk is like fool.’
‘He’s a fool, a madman, and a drowned man. The first drink makes him a fool, the second makes him crazy, the third drowns him.’

Answer 4

• Olivia and Feste

Themes: Drunkeness, Fools,

Question 5

‘He is very well-favoured and he speaks very shrewishly; one would think his mother’s milk were scarce out of him.’

Answer 5

• Malvolio about Olivia

Themes: Disguise, Mistaken Identity, Gender and Sexual Identity,

Question 6

‘Unless the master were the man. How now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague.’

Answer 6

• Olivia

Themes: Love and Romance, Fickleness,

Question 7

‘Run after that same peevish messenger, The county’s man. He left his ring behind him.’

Answer 7

-Olivia to Malvolio about Viola

Themes: Physical Comedy, Disguise, Mistaken Identity,

Question 8

‘My masters are you mad?’

Answer 8

• Malvolio

Themes: Class, Foreshadowing, Irony