Daily Inspiration Quote by Sharon Gless

There is something almost disarmingly modest about Sharon Gless framing Shakespeare as someone who "had a lot to contribute" to the human condition, like he was a gifted colleague at the table rather than the table itself. That understatement is the point. Coming from an actress, it’s less a literary claim than a professional credo: Shakespeare isn’t an untouchable monument; he’s usable. He’s a tool for getting at what makes people contradict themselves, lie cleanly, love badly, and keep going anyway.

The phrasing matters. "I think" signals taste and experience, not doctrine. Gless isn’t trying to win an argument in an English department; she’s testifying from the rehearsal room, where theories about humanity have to survive breath, timing, and an audience that can sense falseness. "Understanding" is the actor’s keyword here: not knowledge, not philosophy, but an ability to map motives and impulses so precisely that performers can inhabit them. Shakespeare becomes the ultimate script doctor, diagnosing jealousy, ambition, shame, desire, and grief with enough specificity to feel contemporary without being contemporary.

The cultural subtext is also defensive in a quiet way. In an entertainment economy that rewards speed, franchise familiarity, and ironic detachment, invoking Shakespeare is a claim for depth without sounding precious. Gless is asserting that craft still requires contact with big interior realities - and that the old texts remain the most efficient delivery system for them.