Emotions Really Exist At The Bottom Of The Personality Or At The Top. In The Middle They Are Acted. This

“Emotions really exist at the bottom of the personality or at the top. In the middle they are acted. This is why all the world is a stage”

— Iris Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea

“I honestly can’t even tell the two of you apart half the time because I don’t go by height or age, I go by amount of pain in my ass, which makes you both identical.”

-Claudius, to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Guildenstern: Isn’t it strange that evolution would give us a sense of humor? When you think about it, it’s weird that we have a physiological response to absurdity. We laugh at nonsense. We like it. We think it’s funny. Don’t you think it’s odd that we appreciate absurdity? Why would we develop that way? How does it benefit us?

Rosencrantz: I suppose if we couldn’t laugh at things that don’t make sense, we couldn’t react to a lot of life.

GUIL: Stop being perverse.

ROS (near tears): I'm not going to stand for it!

(A FEMALE FIGURE, ostensibly the QUEEN, enters. ROS marches up behind her, puts his hands over her eyes and says with a desperate frivolity.)

ROS: Guess who?!

PLAYER (having appeared in a downstage corner): Alfred!

(ROS lets go, spins around. He had been holding ALFRED, in his robe and blonde wig. PLAYER is in the downstage corner still. ROS comes down to that exit. The PLAYER does not budge. He and ROS stand toe to toe.)

ROS: Excuse me.