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I’m so tired. I need my sleep; I make no bones about it. I need eight hours a day and ten at night and I’m good. Bill Hicks, Sane Man *****
Listen, man, sleep gives you cancer, everyone knows that. The Young Ones s1e2: Boring, Neil to Rick in broom cupboard, BBC 1982
Life is something to do when you can’t get to sleep. Fran Lebowitz, Metropolitan Life, 1978
Minnesota: It is illegal to sleep naked. Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! 2006
Most glorious night!
Thou wert not made for slumber. Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage III:93
Dusky like night, but night with all her stars,
Or cavern sparkling with its native spars;
With eyes that were a language and a spell,
A form like Aphrodites in her shell,
With all her loves around her on the deep,
Voluptuous as the first approach of sleep. Lord Byron, The Island
Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep,
And yet a third of life is passed in sleep. Lord Byron
When will this fearful slumber have an end? ...
Now is a time to storm! William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus III i 251 & 264, Titus to Marcus & Marcus to Titus
I have an exposition of sleep come upon me. William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream IV i 43
O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness? William Shakespeare, II Henry IV III i 5-8 & 31, King Henry
Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights. William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar I ii 193-194, Caesar
Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber.
Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies
Which busy care draws in the brains of men. ibid. II i 229-231, Brutus
What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? William Shakespeare, Hamlet, soliloquy IV iv 33-35
There are a kind of men
So loose of soul that in their sleeps
Will mutter their affairs. William Shakespeare, Othello III iii 420-421, Iago
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid.
He shall live a man forbid.
Weary se’nnights nine times nine
Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine:
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tost. William Shakespeare, Macbeth I iii 19
Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more!
Macbeth doth murder sleep,’ the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast. ibid. II ii 36
Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more! ibid. II ii 43
Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit,
And look on death itself! up, up, and see
The great doom’s image! ibid. II iii 83
Alonso: What, all so soon asleep? I wish mine eyes
Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts – I find
They are inclined to do so.
Sebastian: Do not omit the heavy offer of it,
It seldom visits sorrow; when it doth,
It is a comforter. William Shakespeare, The Tempest II I @196
The honey heavy dew of slumber. Julius Caesar 2012 starring Paterson Joseph & Ray Fearon & Cyril Nri & Adjoa Andoh & Jeffery Kissoon et al, director Gregory Duran RSC production *****
O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature’s soft nurse ... Steep my senses in forgetfulness. The Hollow Crown: Henry IV part II 2012 ***** BBC starring Jeremy Irons & Simon Russell Beale & Tom Hiddleston & Alun Armstrong & David Bamber & Julie Walters & Niamh Cusack & David Dawson & Michaelle Dockery et al, director Richard Eyre, King
Living is an illness to which sleep provides relief every sixteen hours. It’s a palliative. The remedy is death. Nicolas-Sebastien Chamfort
Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
I think a lot of alien abduction accounts are in fact elaborations of sleep paralysis. Professor Susan Blackmore
The more I hear about abduction stories particularly the ones that happen in bed at night when people are asleep, the more I can see the similarities between that and what’s called sleep paralysis. Professor Susan Blackmore
How wonderful is Death,
Death and his brother Sleep! Percy Bysshe Shelley, Queen Mab
We term sleep a death, and yet it is waking that kills us, and destroys those spirits which are the house of life. Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici
Sleep would be so welcome. A warm blanket of black to erase everything else. Sleep without dreams. I’ve heard people talk about the sleep of the dead. Is that what death would feel like? The nicest, warmest, heaviest never-ending nap? If that’s what it’s like, I wouldn’t mind. If that’s what dying is like, I wouldn’t mind that at all. Gayle Forman, If I Stay
One day we’ll wake up. If we wake up at all that is. And our so-called civilisation will have vanished overnight. Alan Ayckbourn, Season’s Greetings starring Michael Cashman & Barbara Flynn & Nicky Henson & Anna Massey & Geoffrey Palmer & Peter Vaughan et al, director Michael A Simpson, Harvey to Clive, BBC 1986
I bet I know why you couldn’t sleep. You’ve been drinking too much. Don’t you think you ought to take it easy. The Sound of Fury 1950 starring starring Frank Lovejoy & Lloyd Bridges & Kathleen Ryan & Richard Carlson & Katherine Locke & Adale Jergens & Art Smith et al, director Cyril Endfield, her to him
I’ll sleep when he’s dead. Gone 2012 starring Amanda Seyfried & Daniel Sunjata & Jennifer Carpenter & Sebastian Stan & Wes Bentley & Katherine Moennig & Machael Pare & Joel David Moore & Nick Searcy & Hunter Parrish et al, director Heitor Dhalia, sister to rozzer
Sleep can interfere ... [with opportunity]: 103rd Rule of Acquisition. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine s2e7: Rules of Acquisition, Ferengi female to Quark
Was I the only one who couldn’t sleep that night? Was it the moon? How I longed for him. Hyde Park on Hudson 2012 starring Bill Murray & Laura Linney & Samuel West & Olivia Colman & Elizabeth Marvel & Olivia Williams & Elizabeth Wilson & Andrew Havill et al, director Roger Michell, her