“Words, words, words.”

William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600)

Act II, Scene 2 ยท spoken by Hamlet

Context

Polonius has just asked Hamlet what he is reading. Hamlet, who suspects Polonius of conspiring against him and despises the courtier's hollow pieties, gives this dismissive non-answer.

How the repetition works

Three identical words to express weariness, contempt, and the reduction of meaning to mere noise. By naming "words" and only "words," Hamlet refuses to disclose the book's content while simultaneously demoting all language to a kind of background hum. It is one of literature's purest distillations of cynical disengagement.