There we were - demented children mincing about in clothes that no one ever wore, speaking as no man ever spoke, swearing love in wigs and rhymed couplets, killing each other with wooden swords, hollow protestations of faith hurled after empty promises of vengeance - and every gesture, every pose, vanishing into the thin unpopulated air. We ransomed our dignity to the clouds, and the uncomprehending birds listened. Don't you see?! We're actors - we're the opposite of people!
Tom Stoppard
Related I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES I'll be looking for you, Will, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other aga... PHILIP PULLMAN We were both very much the same. We were both very impulsive. We both loved life. We both loved shop... ELTON JOHN Back then, we wore our own clothes. There were no stylists. I would wear the same pants with differe... BRETT SOMERS She is sugar, curiosity, and rain. E. LOCKHART In every age 'the good old days' were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For ev... BROOKS ATKINSON If in barbed wire things can bloom, why couldn't I? I will not die, I will not die. FRIEDL AND THE CHILDREN OF TEREZIN There is no greater glory than to die for love. GABRIEL GARCíA MáRQUEZ Together they had overcome the daily incomprehension, the instantaneous hatred, the reciprocal nasti... GABRIEL GARCíA MáRQUEZ She would defend herself, saying that love, no matter what else it might be, was a natural talent. S... GABRIEL GARCíA MáRQUEZ I will love you forever; whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of... PHILIP PULLMAN When we started NFL Films, there were no focus groups, there were no demographic studies, there were... STEVE SABOL A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two, who had never seen each other before that day... ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE In every age 'the good old days' were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time... BROOKS ATKINSON You could not see a cloud, because / No cloud was in the sky: / No birds were flying overhead - / Th... LEWIS CARROLL We were told that it was a clear night. There was no ice out there. The weather was very good, and t... JANET WU We were trying to understand the emotional relevance of every move and gesture. JOE WRIGHT The mark of a real man, is a man who can allow himself to fall deeply in love with a woman. But the ... C. JOYBELL C. What is the Other?" they ask. The Other is the one who taught me whatI should be like, but not ... PAULO COELHO As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever ... MITCH ALBOM Clay in the hands of a good potter suffers so many good turns, but in the end, we see its real and t... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH “Love is not to be discovered but felt.It is brewing in air across universe.One needs only open ey... ANUJ SOMANY There was a house at the foot of the tower, close to the thunder of the waves breaking against the c... GABRIEL GARCíA MáRQUEZ We both grew so used to each other, so comfortable with the naturalness and ease of our friendship, ... KATE KERRIGAN When the man was disgraced and told to go away, he was allowed to ask all the animals whether any of... RICHARD ADAMS we sat there smoking cigarettes at 5 in the morning. CHARLES BUKOWSKI I can honestly say that there was no nurturing at all. I mean, we were fed. We were well clothed. Th... MELODY STRONG All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other; hopelessly, I... VLADIMIR NABOKOV But if you were associated with a fire department, they were the friendliest people you ever met. So... BILL SUMMERS This is the true measure of love: When we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever hav... JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE And I was your moon because I shined brighter than any other star in your universe and you were my d... SHANNON L. ALDER We were never asked to participate in any form of negotiations and no demands were ever made of us. AUSTIN DAVIS Now is the only time we have, and the only time that we have any control over. RICHARD CARLSON If we're honest with ourselves, most of us know the one thing we lack. CRAIG GROESCHEL Honesty never was the best policy.That proverb was only intended for those who had no money,no digni... TASMIN JAHAN Life is neither a glorious highlight reel nor a monstrous tragedy. Every day is a good day to live a... KILROY J. OLDSTER You'd go to the Kannapolis Y, and the weights were hidden down in the basement where no one ever wen... CHIP SIGMON And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after ... C.S. LEWIS I don't know if I have a favorite color. KATE MIDDLETON It's very special having a new little girl. KATE MIDDLETON I'm always highly irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It i... FLANNERY O'CONNOR Hard to restrain, unstable is this mind; it flits wherever it lists. Good it is to control the mind.... GAUTAMA BUDDHA There is only one classroom in which to learn: 1. The work of God. 2. The will of God. 3. The trustw... ELISABETH ELLIOT There are no laws, no boundaries on feelings.We can love each other as much and as deeply as we want... TABITHA SUZUMA We started the company out of frustration with the employer that we had because we were building gre... JOHN WARNOCK We fell into each other’s arms and kissed like we were coming up for air after being underwater fo... EMME ROLLINS That is the true season of love; when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have... JOHANN VON GOETHE Mindfulness is observing the beauty of every moment unfolding before us. AMIT RAY When you live with dignity no man will ever take it. Live without it and every boy will steal it. SHANNON L. ALDER I wish we had met away from all these battles. I wish we had met in a land of peace without social c... JIHAD ELTABEY There were days, rainy gray days, when the streets of Brooklyn were worthy of a photograph, every wi... PATTI SMITH When the memory of one's predecessors is buried, the assumption persists that there were none and ea... JOANNA RUSS Life begins somewhere and ends somewhere with time but to get somewhere with the life you have depen... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH The truth is that killing innocent people is always wrong - and no argument or excuse, no matter how... FEISAL ABDUL RAUF Years and years ago, there was a production of The Tempest, out of doors, at an Oxford college on a ... TOM STOPPARD When each and every believer rises up to serve others and function according to their capacity, the ... HENRY HON The real thing that keeps men and women apart, is fear. Women blame men and men blame women, but the... C. JOYBELL C. There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he... C.S. LEWIS We can leave a place behind, or we can stay in that place and leave our selfishness (often expressed... JOHN H. GROBERG We took off our clothes, and we were basically in a sphere of love and light and warmth, and the res... ANTHONY KIEDIS Now is the only time we have, and the only time we have any control over. RICHARD CARLSON In Hong Kong, I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “Love in the Time of Cholera”, in which the hero... GRAEME SIMSION We think this system may have gotten material from two clouds instead of one, and the two were rotat... ANTHONY REMIJAN Some nonreligious people are disgruntled by the word "faith," feeling that it has no connection to t... KENTETSU TAKAMORI When we were children, we were told that we have a motherland, and that motherland was Spain. Howeve... HUGO CHAVEZ I danced as he twirled in and out of consciousness, and there we were, one in love and the other ast... DOMINIC RICCITELLO No man ever freely surrendered a portion of his own liberty for the sake of the public good; such a ... CESARE BECCARIA The Ideal Man should talk to us as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children. He sho... OSCAR WILDE Some of everything happened out there. Basically, we were outplayed. In every aspect of the game, we... DUANE STARKS Lord, help us to choose humility over pride. Help us to choose love over our reputation. ANDRENA SAWYER We hustled. We trusted each other and we were unified. There is no such thing as a man-to-man defens... JAMESON CURRY It's no secret that we were sticking just about every nickel we had on the chance that people would ... WALT DISNEY We sent plain-clothes officers to see if it was the right man we were looking for. Of course, we had... OLIVIER LAPOINTE We were really empty in our mind. When the music started, we didn't know where to restart our elemen... ZHANG HAO When Harry and I were doing the games together, we were as good as a team as there ever was. His sty... JACK BUCK At the end of the warehouse was a dais constructed from pallets of books: stack of vampire novels, w... RICK RIORDAN The truth is ships and aircraft have been vanishing with tragic regularity in every part of the worl... CLIVE CUSSLER Percy was getting tired of water. If he said that aloud, he would probably get kicked out of Po... RICK RIORDAN Orion is above the horizon now, and near it Jupiter, brighter than it will ever be ... But i expect ... THOMAS HARRIS We straighten , bu our snickering is barely contained as we attempt to focus our attention on a pict... STEPHANIE PERKINS We pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth ha... L.M. MONTGOMERY All believers are members of the same body and should be viewed and treated that way. HENRY HON In the journey of life, certain paths may seem to be leading nowhere because of a mountain or hill o... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH The heart is deceitful and wicked in everyone; the Holy Spirit changes even the most wretched sinner... NORM TOMLINSON Woe unto you if you have come to this world just to fear man,for man is nothing but ordinary dust wi... DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) The power of man;Man does not only have the power to accomplish great & unbelievable things in life,... DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) There were no gates, no lights, no bells, no stop signs to warn of an oncoming train, ... One month ... RYAN MOORE We have tears in our eyes As we wave our goodbyes, We so loved being with you, we three. ROALD DAHL That is the true season of love, when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have... JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE A lot of people didn't even know we were being investigated. When the news broke last week, our fres... LOU HOLTZ We were about as ready and focused as we've ever been. The first 20 minutes were really intense and ... JUDE TEMPLE No one was conceived by hate, but love, so love each other knowing this-even if the world is full of... LAURA E. BRUSSEAU Every revolution begins with one voice crying in the wilderness. JEFFREY FRY You deserve to be with somebody, who knows you're the one, from that very first moment he lays eyes ... C. JOYBELL C. There was a lot of debate about every aspect of the story to make sure we were balancing legitimate ... LEONARD DOWNIE There was one point in Texas where we gave up. We were taking our clothes in grocery bags out of the... GEORGE HARRIS We were on deck and all tossed our hats up in the air with joy. Some went overboard. Ship's horns bl... RUSSELL COLLINS Balt Van Tassel was an easy indulgent soul; he loved his daughter better even than his pipe, and, li... WASHINGTON IRVING Fool! Never wait on a man! Let him wait on himself! V.C. ANDREWS The unfortunate thing is that, sometimes, we slip, but, fortunately, consciously or unconsciously, w... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH
More Tom Stoppard
Good things, when short, are twice as good. TOM STOPPARD Time is short, life is short, there's a lot to know. So I skip the entertainers in the newspaper... TOM STOPPARD The thing that happens remarkably often is that the people who are writing a dissertation believe th... TOM STOPPARD I'm offended by things and take pathetic little stands against them. TOM STOPPARD My whole life is waiting for the questions to which I have prepared answers. TOM STOPPARD The text loses its virginity simply by being staged: it's no longer the abstract ideal version; ... TOM STOPPARD I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones... TOM STOPPARD Any revival in which I am involved is liable to change. TOM STOPPARD Hotel rooms inhabit a separate moral universe. TOM STOPPARD All your life, you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye. An... TOM STOPPARD Theatre is a series of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster. TOM STOPPARD The whole philosophy of modern times is to dissolve distinctions between individuals and deal with t... TOM STOPPARD For me, human rights simply endorse a view of life and a set of moral values that are perfectly clea... TOM STOPPARD Every exit is an entry somewhere else. TOM STOPPARD It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting. TOM STOPPARD Obviously, you would give your life for your children, or give them the last biscuit on the plate. B... TOM STOPPARD From as long as, literally as far back as I can remember I've liked puns, word jokes, I can lite... TOM STOPPARD I still believe that if your aim is to change the world, journalism is a more immediate short-term w... TOM STOPPARD A great production of a black comedy is better than a mediocre production of a comedy of errors. TOM STOPPARD When I was 20, in 1957, and maybe you would say I was old enough to know better, but nevertheless, I... TOM STOPPARD We give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain. TOM STOPPARD The notion that the 'leader' has the right to ask huge sacrifices of your generation for a n... TOM STOPPARD When I was a reporter in Bristol, which I was between the years 1954 and 1960, the newspaper would g... TOM STOPPARD In January 1962, when I was the author of one and a half unperformed plays, I attended a student pro... TOM STOPPARD Life is a gamble at terrible odds, if it were a bet, you would not take it. TOM STOPPARD My family was in Singapore when the Japanese War started. We were in Singapore at the time of Pearl ... TOM STOPPARD It is better of course to know useless things than to know nothing. TOM STOPPARD Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where's it going to end? TOM STOPPARD My brain cells are dying in their trillions. TOM STOPPARD Age is a high price to pay for maturity. TOM STOPPARD In Chekhov, everything blends into its opposite, just fractionally, and this is sort of unsettling. ... TOM STOPPARD It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting. TOM STOPPARD Age is a very high price to pay for maturity. TOM STOPPARD Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else. TOM STOPPARD The media. It sounds like a convention of spiritualists. TOM STOPPARD Every exit is an entry somewhere. TOM STOPPARD I don't think I can be expected to take seriously any game which takes less than three days to reach... TOM STOPPARD Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picni... TOM STOPPARD We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our prog... TOM STOPPARD We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the r... TOM STOPPARD Revolution is a trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering. TOM STOPPARD It is better to be quotable than to be honest. TOM STOPPARD If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older. TOM STOPPARD Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them. TOM STOPPARD From principles is derived probability, but truth or certainty is obtained only from facts. TOM STOPPARD I am not my body. My body is nothing without me. TOM STOPPARD If an idea's worth having once, it's worth having twice. TOM STOPPARD A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it... TOM STOPPARD In 2005, I got an email from Belarus Free Theatre. They were emailing playwrights in America and Eng... TOM STOPPARD A 'human right' is, by definition, timeless. It cannot adhere to some societies and not othe... TOM STOPPARD I feel that when I began writing, I had a need to know more about the play before I got into it. I t... TOM STOPPARD My intention still is to write a play to commemorate, possibly rather skeptically, the 50th annivers... TOM STOPPARD I write plays because writing dialogue is the only respectable way of contradicting yourself. I put ... TOM STOPPARD Maturity is a high price to pay for growing up. TOM STOPPARD A healthy attitude is contagious but don't wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier. TOM STOPPARD People have quite a simple idea about 'Anna Karenina.' They feel that the novel is entirely ... TOM STOPPARD I have about a dozen cassettes lying about which I use in random order. Very often, I pick up a cass... TOM STOPPARD I think... the history of civilization is an attempt to codify, classify and categorize aspects of h... TOM STOPPARD What Tolstoy is on about is that carnal love is not a good idea. TOM STOPPARD Very often in Chekhov, where he exhibits a little bit of human behavior that you recognize as true, ... TOM STOPPARD Chekhov understood that people are mysterious and can't be reduced to what we nowadays call '... TOM STOPPARD I am not a mathematician, but I was aware that for centuries, mathematics was considered the queen o... TOM STOPPARD Success is a sort of metaphysical experience. I live exactly as I did before - only on a slightly bi... TOM STOPPARD There must have been a moment, at the beginning, were we could have said -- no. But somehow we misse... TOM STOPPARD Chekhov was capable of casually tossing off deplorable comments in his letters, combined with a very... TOM STOPPARD If you let the plot be determined by what you feel is in the character's mind at that point, it ... TOM STOPPARD I was interested by the idea that artists working in a totalitarian dictatorship or tsarist autocrac... TOM STOPPARD One of the attractions of translating 'Heroes' is that it's not the kind of play that I ... TOM STOPPARD It is easily and often overlooked that when Thomas Jefferson asserted that life, liberty and the pur... TOM STOPPARD After all these years, I definitely associate having a pen in my hand with having an ashtray just ou... TOM STOPPARD Because theatre is a story-telling art form, we feel entitled to assume that the playwright got ther... TOM STOPPARD I barely remembered my father; I'm confused between genuine memory and the few photographs that ... TOM STOPPARD I'm good at being funny. TOM STOPPARD If Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at the age of 22, it would have changed the history of... TOM STOPPARD A man breaking his journey between one place and another at a third place of no name, character, pop... TOM STOPPARD If I hadn't left Czechoslovakia, I would have been dead. TOM STOPPARD I just happen to know quite a lot of what happened in Czechoslovakia between 1968 and the fall of Co... TOM STOPPARD I went to an English school and was brought up in English. So I don't feel Czech. TOM STOPPARD The idea that being human and having rights are equivalent - that rights are inherent - is unintelli... TOM STOPPARD Because children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's purpose is to be a... TOM STOPPARD Each move is dictated by the previous one--that is the meaning of order TOM STOPPARD Wheels have been set in motion, and they have their own pace, to which we are...condemned. Each move... TOM STOPPARD Well I believe in the desirability of an optimal society. TOM STOPPARD The whole notion of journalism being an institution whose fundamental purpose is to educate and info... TOM STOPPARD One doesn't want one's democracy to behave like a dictatorial or fascistic police. One doesn... TOM STOPPARD Rosencrantz: Do you think death could possibly be a boat? Guildenstern: No, no, no...Death is...... TOM STOPPARD Dying is not romantic, and death is not a game which will soon be over... Death is not anything...de... TOM STOPPARD It's better to be quotable than to be honest. TOM STOPPARD Life in a box is better than no life at all ... I expect. TOM STOPPARD The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means. TOM STOPPARD We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on ... TOM STOPPARD Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end? TOM STOPPARD The truth is always a compound of two half- truths, and you never reach it, because there is always ... TOM STOPPARD The days of the digital watch are numbered. TOM STOPPARD If Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at the age of 22, it would have changed the history of... TOM STOPPARD I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity. TOM STOPPARD I agree with everything you say, but I would attack to the death your right to say it. TOM STOPPARD Fifty-five crystal spheres geared to God TOM STOPPARD We're actors - we're the opposite of people. TOM STOPPARD It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting. TOM STOPPARD Pirates could happen to anyone. TOM STOPPARD Dying is not romantic, and death is not a game which will soon be over... Death is not anything... d... TOM STOPPARD I think I enlist comedy to a serious purpose. TOM STOPPARD That I have the right to express myself freely at all times in all circumstances entails the idea th... TOM STOPPARD In the end, my children put me on to Pink Floyd when they were teenagers. TOM STOPPARD Pink Floyd are one of a handful of bands I've listened to a lot and whose concerts I've been... TOM STOPPARD When I was younger, I could do something useful just by being free for half a day, but now I need fi... TOM STOPPARD You do know what's coming up when you're translating. I suppose the concentration, then, is ... TOM STOPPARD Life is a gamble, at terrible odds - if it was a bet you wouldn't take it. TOM STOPPARD For me, the reputation for teaching language in general, and East European languages most particular... TOM STOPPARD Like many people, I only knew of Ford Madox Ford through a book called 'The Good Soldier,' w... TOM STOPPARD A free press needs to be a respected press. TOM STOPPARD He's someone who flies around from hotel to hotel and thinks the most interesting thing about any st... TOM STOPPARD I want to support the whole idea of the humanities and teaching the humanities as being something th... TOM STOPPARD In the period before the arrival of Mrs. Thatcher, politics had been in such low esteem. Everything ... TOM STOPPARD It is no light matter to put in jeopardy a single life when it is the very singularity of each life ... TOM STOPPARD Chater: You dare to call me that. I demand satisfaction! Septimus: Mrs Chater demanded sa... TOM STOPPARD THOMASINA: But then the Egyptian noodle made carnal embrace with the enemy who burned the great... TOM STOPPARD Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect. You'd have a chance at least. You could lie t... TOM STOPPARD My life feels, week to week, incomplete to the level of being pointless if I am not in preparation f... TOM STOPPARD I'm not one of those writers who insist they don't read reviews and don't care much abou... TOM STOPPARD All of my scripts are based on other people's novels. Generally, I consider myself as one who wr... TOM STOPPARD Life is a gamble, at terrible odds. If it were a bet you wouldn’t take it. TOM STOPPARD I once did a radio program with a famous materialist, that is to say a scientist who believed that a... TOM STOPPARD Lou Reed was a hero because he was an anti-hero. TOM STOPPARD Be happy -- if you're not even happy, what's so good about surviving? TOM STOPPARD It is not hard to understand modern art. If it hangs on a wall it's a painting, and if you can w... TOM STOPPARD [Now] Bach ... a splash in the making. TOM STOPPARD What a fine persecution - to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened. TOM STOPPARD Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order you can nudge t... TOM STOPPARD If you took away everything in the world that had to be invented, there'd be nothing left except a l... TOM STOPPARD Get me inside any boardroom and I'll get any decision I want. TOM STOPPARD The sense of suppression, ... or self-suppression, and pressure generally which came off even this p... TOM STOPPARD James Joyce - an essentially private man who wished his total indifference to public notice to be un... TOM STOPPARD The House of Lords, an illusion to which I have never been able to subscribe - responsibility withou... TOM STOPPARD My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful; but when I had to choose one or the other... TOM STOPPARD A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's ... TOM STOPPARD Eternity's a terrible thought TOM STOPPARD We've traveled too far, and our momentum has taken over; we move idly towards eternity, without poss... TOM STOPPARD We're actors. We're the opposite of people. TOM STOPPARD the bewilderment and incomprehension of critics and audience. TOM STOPPARD It's wholly deserved and I am completely thrilled. As a writer he has been unswerving for 50 years, ... TOM STOPPARD wholly deserved and I'm completely thrilled. TOM STOPPARD Every exit is an entrance somewhere else TOM STOPPARD I don't respond well to the Olympic noise, which is the noise of nationalistic triumphalism. TOM STOPPARD Years and years ago, there was a production of The Tempest, out of doors, at an Oxford college on a ... TOM STOPPARD Traitors hoist by their own petard?--or victims of the gods?--we shall never know! TOM STOPPARD I shall have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love, love, love, above all. Love as there has ne... TOM STOPPARD It is a defect of God's humor that he directs our hearts everywhere but to those who have a right to... TOM STOPPARD It would have been nice to have had unicorns. TOM STOPPARD It's where we're nearest to our humanness. Useless knowledge for its own sake. Useful knowledge is g... TOM STOPPARD It makes me so happy. To be at the beginning again, knowing almost nothing.... A door like this has ... TOM STOPPARD Seduced her? Every time I turned round she was up a library ladder. In the end I gave in. That remin... TOM STOPPARD I actually went to an Oasis concert. I thought they were a brilliant songwriting band. TOM STOPPARD You can't treat royalty like people with normal perverted desires. TOM STOPPARD Comparing what we're looking for misses the point. It's wanting to know that makes us matter. Otherw... TOM STOPPARD Carnal embrace is sexual congress, which is the insertion of the male genital organ into the female ... TOM STOPPARD HANNAH: Don't let Bernard get to you. It's only performance art, you know. Rhetoric, they used to te... TOM STOPPARD Life is a gamble at terrible odds, if it were a bet, you would not take it TOM STOPPARD A healthy attitude is contagious but don't wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier. TOM STOPPARD It is an interesting view of atheism, as a sort of "crutch" for those who can't stand the reality of... TOM STOPPARD The idea of the state is, or should be, a very limited, prescribed idea. The state looks after the d... TOM STOPPARD I have a spasm of envy for the person that was killed by a falling bookcase, as long as it doesn'... TOM STOPPARD I was an awful critic. I operated on the assumption that there was an absolute scale of values again... TOM STOPPARD What is the society we wish to protect? Is it the society of complete surveillance for the commonwea... TOM STOPPARD Even when the writing seems very frivolous, I'm puritanical. I don't mean my subject matter.... TOM STOPPARD The idea that public safety, the safety of the innocent, is an absolute which trumps every other con... TOM STOPPARD I feel overestimated. TOM STOPPARD I'm not a theoretician about playwriting, but I have a strong sense that plays have to be pitche... TOM STOPPARD We're actors — we're the opposite of people! TOM STOPPARD Love is - OK, it's 20 things, but it isn't 19. And I think that love reaches for something w... TOM STOPPARD As a writer, Harold has been unswerving for 50 years, TOM STOPPARD If you associate enough with older people who do enjoy their lives, who are not stored away in any g... TOM STOPPARD I don't do interviews under false pretenses. TOM STOPPARD Despite the digital age, there is a very large number of venues and spaces that are looking for play... TOM STOPPARD I'm not like some other writers: I have no actual urgent need or desire to add to what's wri... TOM STOPPARD I've voted in every election - not always for the same political party and never with any degree... TOM STOPPARD I'm vaguely embarrassed by myself sometimes. TOM STOPPARD As a playwright, you can cover a lot of waterfront without being able to hold your own against an ex... TOM STOPPARD I like dialogue that is slightly more brittle than life. I have always admired and wished to write o... TOM STOPPARD When I think of how things could have turned out, I feel as if I've dodged, not just bullets, bu... TOM STOPPARD I mean, if Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at twenty-two, the history of music would have... TOM STOPPARD My scripts are possibly too talkative. Sometimes I watch a scene I've written, and occasionally ... TOM STOPPARD Nobody would be killed on the roads if the speed limit were 10 miles an hour. TOM STOPPARD Theater in New York is nearer to the street. In London, you have to go deep into the building, usual... TOM STOPPARD I don't think falling in love in Slovakia is much different from falling in love in Tunbridge We... TOM STOPPARD GUIL: It [Hamlet's madness] really boils down to symptoms. Pregnant replies, mystic allusions, mista... TOM STOPPARD A man speaking sense to himself is no madder than a man speaking nonsense not to himself. TOM STOPPARD There are certain sorts of jokes which have only to do with the substitution of the unexpected word ... TOM STOPPARD Schepisi is the sort of director who could, would, and frequently did phone me whenever he came acro... TOM STOPPARD Directors sometimes have good ideas that I wished I'd had, not on rewriting but simply on stagin... TOM STOPPARD One of the reasons why there are so many versions of Chekhov is that translations date in a way that... TOM STOPPARD The fact is, I loved being English. I was very happy to be turned into an English schoolboy. TOM STOPPARD You end up going to school plays quite a bit as a parent, there are a lot of kids who are doing the ... TOM STOPPARD Free to move, speak, extemporize, and yet. We have not been cut loose. Our truancy is defined by on... TOM STOPPARD Let me get it straight. Your father was king. You were his only son. Your father dies. You are of ag... TOM STOPPARD As Socrates so philosophically put it, since we don't know what death is, it is illogical to fear it... TOM STOPPARD All your life you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye, and... TOM STOPPARD We are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style. TOM STOPPARD Rosencrantz: I don't believe in it anyway. Guildenstern: What? Rosencrantz: England. ... TOM STOPPARD