King Charles II: My astronomers tell me that a star's light shines on long after it has died, even though it doesn't know it.
Samuel Pepys: Tell me about your parentage, Miss Gwynn.
Nell Gwynn: My mum was a whore, my father was in the navy.
Samuel Pepys: I see.
Nell Gwynn: That's why I don't never do sailors.
King Charles II: Act a man, Kynaston. How hard can it be?
Ned Kynaston: It is not a question of acting a man. I can act a man. There's no artistry in that. There are things that I can be as a woman that I cannot be as a man.
King Charles II: Balance the scales, Kynaston. Give the girls a chance.
Ned Kynaston: Why does one act?
Maria: When you act, you are seen.
Ned Kynaston: Right, I'll need boot black.
Sir Charles Sedley: I have boot black.
Ned Kynaston: With you?
Sir Charles Sedley: A scuff, sir, is a dreadful thing.
King Charles II: Exile is a dreadful thing for one who knows his rightful place.
Nell Gwynn: Charlie boy, where's his toy? Oh, your Majesty, let me see the crown.
Ned Kynaston: I'm not teaching you how to be a woman. I'm teaching you how to be Desdemona.
Maria: I am an actress, not a beauty.
Ned Kynaston: A woman playing a woman? Where's the trick in that?
Maria: Your old tutor did you a great disservice, Mr. Kynaston. He taught you how to speak, and swoon, and toss your head but he never taught you how to suffer like a woman, or love like a woman. He trapped a man in a woman's form and left you there to die! I always hated you as Desdemona. You never fought! You just died, beautifully. No woman would die like that, no matter how much she loved him. A woman would fight.
Maria: What do you know of love, sir? Or loyalty? Or adoration suffered in deepest silence? The only love you know, sir, is what you act on stage.
Maria: You almost killed me.
Ned Kynaston: I did kill you, you just didn't die.
