As You Like It: Phoebe

As You Like It by William Shakespeare
Act 3 Scene 5

Phoebe:

I would not be thy executioner.
I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.
Thou tell’st me there is murder in mine eye.
'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable
That eyes, that are the frail’st and softest things,
Who shut their coward gates on atomies,
Should be called tyrants, butchers, murderers.
Now I do frown on thee with all my heart,
And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee.
Now counterfeit to swoon, why, now fall down;
Or if thou canst not, Oh, for shame, for shame,
Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers.
Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee.
Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
Some scar of it. Lean upon a rush,
The cicatrice and capable impressure
Thy palm some moment keeps. But now mine eyes,
Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not.
Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes
That can do hurt.

No Fear version can be found here. If you need it shorter, I suggest cutting it after "Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers."

Can't Hardly Wait: Denise

Can't Hardly Wait by Deborah Kaplan & Harry Elfont
Denise: 

I know exactly who you are. You're Kenny Fisher. 
We used to play Miami Vice in my basement. 
You used to sleepover my house. 
You had to leave the hall light on every night. 
You're Kenny Fisher who used to buy me a card every Valentine's Day 
and a bag of those little hearts with the words on them. 
And you're Kenny Fisher who suddenly got too cool to hang out with me 
when we hit junior high. 'Cause, I was in all the smart classes, 
and 'cause my parent's didn't make a lot of money. 
And cause you desperately needed to sit at the trendy table in the cafeteria.

Sweethearts: Jasmine

Sweethearts by Aleks Horvat
Jasmine

What? Do I seem crazy? I'm not crazy! 
I may talk a lot but I'm not crazy. 
If you met someone really crazy I'm telling you, you'd know. 
The most disturbed person I ever met was my roommate Elizabeth. 
She was a borderline paranoid schizophrenic, 
worst halitosis in the world, bar none-and she was attracted to me-ewwwww. 
Although, she did come from a very wealthy family 
so when they came to take her out to dinner I cashed in my chips on that one. 
Don't look at me like that-YES I spent some time in a hospital. 
So! I'm not crazy. I'm NOT CRAZY! 
Although a lot of people do agree my Mom should have never had children. 
I shan't, I've had my tubes tied.

Pygmalion: Liza

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

In the final act of Pygmalion, Liza explains to Prof. Higgins the relationship she desired from him. It’s a tender scene that almost warms the Professor’s heart despite himself.

LIZA: No I don't. That's not the sort of feeling I want from you. And don't you be too sure of yourself or of me. I could have been a bad girl if I'd liked. I've seen more of some things than you, for all your learning. Girls like me can drag gentlemen down to make love to them easy enough. And they wish each other dead the next minute. (much troubled) I want a little kindness. I know I'm a common ignorant girl, and you a book-learned gentleman; but I'm not dirt under your feet. What I done (correcting herself) what I did was not for the dresses and the taxis: I did it because we were pleasant together and I come--came--to care for you; not to want you to make love to me, and not forgetting the difference between us, but more friendly like.

Unfortunately, Higgins is a permanent bachelor. When he is incapable of offering affection, Eliza Doolittle stands up for herself in this powerfully feisty monologue.

LIZA: Aha! Now I know how to deal with you. What a fool I was not to think of it before! You can't take away the knowledge you gave me. You said I had a finer ear than you. And I can be civil and kind to people, which is more than you can. Aha! That's done you, Henry Higgins, it has. Now I don't care that (snapping her fingers) for your bullying and your big talk. I'll advertise it in the papers that your duchess is only a flower girl that you taught, and that she'll teach anybody to be a duchess just the same in six months for a thousand guineas. Oh, when I think of myself crawling under your feet and being trampled on and called names, when all the time I had only to lift up my finger to be as good as you, I could just kick myself!

Oedipus the King: Jocasta

Oedipus the King by Sophocles

JOCASTA:
Why should a mortal man, the sport of chance,
With no assured foreknowledge, be afraid?
Best live a careless life from hand to mouth.
This wedlock with thy mother fear not thou.
How oft it chances that in dreams a man
Has wed his mother! He who least regards
Such brainsick fantasies lives most at ease.

Mrs. Warren's Profession: Mrs. Warren

Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw

MRS WARREN:
Yes, Heaven forgive me, it's true; 
and you are the only one that ever turned on me. 
Oh, the injustice of it! the injustice! the injustice! 
I always wanted to be a good woman. I tried honest work; 
and I was slave-driven until I cursed the day I ever heard of honest work. 
I was a good mother; and because I made my daughter a good woman
 she turns me out as if I were a leper. 
Oh, if I only had my life to live over again! 
I'd talk to that lying clergyman in the school. 
From this time forth, so help me Heaven in my last hour, 
I'll do wrong and nothing but wrong. And I'll prosper on it.

A Doll's House: Nora

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

Nora:

It is perfectly true, Torvald. When I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it. He called me his doll-child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls. And when I came to live with you—

I mean that I was simply transferred from papa's hands into yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as you--or else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure which--I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other. When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I had been living here like a poor woman--just from hand to mouth. I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life.

You neither think nor talk like the man I could bind myself to. As soon as your fear was over--and it was not fear for what threatened me, but for what might happen to you--when the whole thing was past, as far as you were concerned it was exactly as if nothing at all had happened. Exactly as before, I was your little skylark, your doll, which you would in future treat with doubly gentle care, because it was so brittle and fragile. Torvald--it was then it dawned upon me that for eight years I had been living here with a strange man, and had borne him three children--. Oh! I can't bear to think of it! I could tear myself into little bits!