In the period before the arrival of Mrs. Thatcher, politics had been in such low esteem. Everything was so hedged, so mealy-mouthed. Then along came this woman who seemed to have no manners at all and said exactly what she thought. Everyone's eyes were popping and their jaws were dropping, and I really enjoyed that.
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 We were feeling euphoric and light headed. I was wondering what the deal was. Everyone's ears were p... BOB BRYAN I was at a dinner party many years ago,sitting along from Tom Stoppard, who in those days smoked not... STEPHEN FRY What Mrs. Thatcher did for women was to demonstrate that if a woman had enough desire she could do w... JULIE BURCHILL Though it was bright sunshine everyone felt suddenly cold. The only two people present who seemed to... C.S. LEWIS Here is one fact 1 minute to finish the class, 1 day to die, one day behind that fact, one day in th... DEYTH BANGER Once, when Tom was over here, to tease Rose, I asked him, "Before she was born, can you remember? We... HILARY MCKAY When my sister and I came along, my father's political life was completely over. He ran for pres... ANNE COX CHAMBERS My best friend was really cool, and she went to a youth theatre in Paisley, so I thought maybe that&... RICHARD MADDEN if she thought she'd seen his eyes burn before, it was nothing compared to what they were doing now.... J.R. WARD Then Deborah stood at the wicket gate, the boundary, and there was a woman with outstretched hand, d... DAPHNE DU MAURIER Lucy seemed to be imprisoned by a legion of people in her life who always wanted what was right for ... C. JOYBELL C. In all my wild mountaineering, I have enjoyed only one avalanche ride; and the start was so sudden, ... JOHN MUIR So when she came, it was said: Is your throne like this? She said: It is as it were the same, and we... QURAN And the sculptor woman was so clever in the way she did it. She had the beret just about to leave my... MARY TYLER MOORE The trouble with Grace, she thought, is that she is so literal. But that was the trouble with most p... ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH I remember watching Gilda Radner when I was a kid and everyone thought she was so funny and no one e... RACHEL DRATCH Seeing everything that we had worked for and, in many cases, fought for be put into motion and be su... CAMERON FRENCH Before her marriage she had thought that she had love within her grasp; but since the happiness whic... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT My mother was a dramatic and egocentric person, and she died before my father, who died of Alzheimer... SUE MILLER It was the shadow of Some one who had gone by long before: of Some one who had gone on far away quit... CHARLES DICKENS Stacy had this more fluid style. You meet him, he's just such a nice guy. Tony's an awesome ... JOHN ROBINSON Mrs. Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr. Darling had a passion for being exactly like ... J.M. BARRIE She really said no to nothing. I think Tom Robbins named her. She officially changed her name to Aur... DANA RUST In 2008, I was the woman who thought she had the world by the tail: the "perfect life." ... JULIE-ANNE I was in a really crummy pop-punk band. I think we did a whole bunch of Blink-182 covers, and we wer... NATE RUESS She felt Britain should not be so dependent on coal. She was in favour of building up nuclear energy... NIGEL LAWSON (Dominic after winning King & Queen contest at Prom along with Tess) “You like me, you r... J.M. DARHOWER There have been so many people who come in and want to see her and the puppies. One woman wanted to ... DR. KIMBERLEE YOUNG I got a role in this movie called Freeway playing this really angry, aggressive, violent young woman... REESE WITHERSPOON I don't know," she said. "We used to squabble a lot when we were going together and then engaged and... DOROTHY PARKER Before she realized he was next to her, he had placed his hands over hers on the countertop, then ho... ALICE HOFFMAN We've had a series of major news stories that have brought in viewers who either were sampling t... BRIT HUME I went to have dinner at their house before I even heard about the movie. We were in their living ro... JOAQUIN PHOENIX I've often said that there's no one thing that I do or have done that is particularly unique... L. E. MODESITT, JR. Children are infinitely credulous. My Lisa was a dull child, but even so she came up with things tha... PENELOPE LIVELY I was blown away. I knew the kids were really motivated. We had reached our goal before lunch and we... KYLE RIGSBY What I am in the eyes of most people - a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person - somebody... VINCENT VAN GOGH The New York Giants had been big in New England for years ? they were New England's team. Their game... BABE PARILLI The car came opposite her, and she curtsied so low that recovery was impossible, and she sat down in... E.F. BENSON In a lot of cases, as in Tom and Nicole's case, the tabloids were about to break the story, so t... MARY HART I’d loved women who were old and who were young; those extra kilos and large rumps, and others so ... ROMAN PAYNE And the old woman who had been the prince’s nurse became nurse to the prince’s children — at l... ANDREW LANG I think everyone was in agreement the John Bolduc had absolutely pitch perfect intonation and just b... JACK KNOX Once upon a time on Tralfamadore there were creatures who weren’t anything like machines. They wer... KURT VONNEGUT What's weird is the Hot Boys and the whole New Orleans Cash Money thing had a really big impact ... G-EAZY The coming together of a man and woman was a holy thing, after all. God had chosen this way of reple... NAOMI RAGEN I learned everything from that show, so it's just a wonderful memory to me. A lot of people woul... SELENA GOMEZ The death of her father and mother and the rich acres of and that had come down to her had set a tra... SHERWOOD ANDERSON What gets me most about these people, Daddy, isn't how ignorant they are, or how much they drink. It... KURT VONNEGUT Bastard,” she spat at him, and she thought he had moved closer. She swung at him, and then suddenl... ROBIN HOBB The modern woman is the curse of the universe. A disaster, that's what. She thinks that before her a... ADELA ROGERS ST. JOHNS I was sitting on my mom's lap across from my father to see Kay Thompson at Ciro's. And I alw... LIZA MINNELLI I told them no, because they were beat after having driven all the way from Columbus, and there was ... DWAINE KNIGHT 'Sunrise Sunset' is a letter I wrote to a girl I was once with who I really thought I was go... BENNY CASSETTE Golf has been such a gift in my life, and I've enjoyed it so much and enjoyed lots of wonderful ... CHERYL LADD He is so beautiful," she thought, aching from the sadness that she saw in his eyes. In the late-afte... SHIRA ANTHONY The majority of our petitions were already filed before today, so it was really quite quiet. We had ... ANN BEARD When I doing dinner theater in high school, I was talking to a woman who had been in the business fo... BLAIR UNDERWOOD I remember I grew up in Pasadena in a very, kind of, homogeneous, kind of, suburban existence and th... MIKE WHITE [There were] no problems in the house before. I've been living here for 24 years now and so everythi... MARCEL BOULET We'd kind of been faking it, at the beginning of the year, that we got along and that everything was... CASSIE COOPER I wouldn't have missed it for the world," said Mrs. Bridge, smiling all around, "and I feel awfully ... EVAN S. CONNELL Jasmine apologized and said she was sorry and said she loved me, she couldn't believe it and sai... LATOYA LONDON I sort of thought that maybe people had to talk that way, sort of saying the same things over and ov... SHIRLEY JACKSON I was overwhelmed at their creativity and dedication to making what they felt was a really good stam... ANGI BRUNNEY So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinkin... KURT VONNEGUT I know a person who, though no poet, composed some verses in a very short time, which were full of f... TERESA OF ÁVILA I loved it. The students were great and well-mannered. They cheered and really enjoyed it. And at th... DEBORAH BROWN It was one of the queer things of life that you saw a person every day for months and were so intima... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I'm an actor who they said was wrinkled and balding and everything else when I was in my early 3... JACK NICHOLSON Oh, God, I struggle with low self-esteem all the time! I think everyone does. I have so much wrong w... ANGELINA JOLIE I don't regret what I've been through. I've had ups and downs, super highs and some real... JENNIFER LOPEZ mealy-mouthed. LEON BRITTAN I was at a meeting two years ago in Beijing, and I passed a bunch of women who were marching in a pr... BETTY FRIEDAN When her body first hit the net, all I registered was a gray blur. I pulled her across it and her ha... VERONICA ROTH In the 90's action pictures were all the rage. As a woman, I was fed up with them and I initiall... MADELEINE STOWE Then, slowly, my feet settled to the ground. Before I had taken six steps I sagged like a sail when ... PATRICK ROTHFUSS There were so many variables to look at and consider, hauling and such. It wasn't only cost. But the... KAREN ANDERSON You are real," she said to herself. "Aye." His voice was deep and resonant, a caress in h... J.R. WARD When sighted people cover their eyes or find themselves in a dark place, this is something that'... ROSEMARY MAHONEY And Edward was surprised to discover that he was listening. Before, when Abilene had talked to him, ... KATE DICAMILLO These were the moments when I was disappointed and frustrated, when I got so low because it seemed a... KIM CLIJSTERS I had a hole in my voice. I still do. We call it a hole, but it's an area in the voice where it&... CECILE MCLORIN SALVANT I'm so excited about 'Shattered;' it's something I've really enjoyed working in,... CALLUM KEITH RENNIE My mother had been educated at a convent, and she had been converted to communism by my father durin... GUILLERMO CABRERA INFANTE Oprah was not somebody who was telling us what to do, she wasn't really teaching us like so many... BONNIE HUNT I've been rewritten on past projects and thought, 'That's not what she was - she was thi... ALLISON SCHROEDER Moana is such an amazing character. She's brave; she is so empowered. She knows what she wants, ... AULI'I CRAVALHO I had this fantasy that in a democracy the government was the population. So I came to America and g... MARJANE SATRAPI When 'Red Tails' came along, all I knew was that they were the first African-American fighte... NE-YO Insofar as she recognized at all that she was dreaming, she realized that she must be exploring her ... DOUGLAS ADAMS I had a friend where it turned out that she hated my guts, all through our friendship. I thought she... MAE WHITMAN I also felt that Ron and Hermione would have gotten divorced. I'm sorry, I just do. The end of Harry... JOSS WHEDON Everyone in my family pretty much has gone here so it seemed like the only option. I think (Lott) al... JENNIFER HOWARD I'm kind of the model that everyone thought would always be the Guess, 'Sports Illustrated... GIGI HADID I knew what they were after; that I had alarmed the country all the way up, that their boats were ca... PAUL REVERE Their cats were filthy with muck from the flood waters. The water came from the Napa River which has... CATHERINE CORNEJO What was she dreaming about, Mrs. Ramsay wondered, seeing her engrossed, as she stood there, with so... VIRGINIA WOOLF We were talking about how we wished we had enjoyed the time, like when we were touring in that littl... FABRIZIO MORETTI
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 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 There we were - demented children mincing about in clothes that no one ever wore, speaking as no man... 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