Tom Stoppard Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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If I asked for a cup of coffee, someone would search for the double meaning.
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It is often said by religious people that without its framework, there is no sense of right or wrong. My view is that religion comes after ethics.
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There are some forms of religion that are bad, just as there's bad cooking or bad art or bad sex, you have bad religion too.
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I really believe that when you're playing a character that everything is contained in the script. If I'm pulling from things from my own life, then I think I'm being disingenuous to the character and the story.
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Lead us not into temptation. Just tell us where it is; we'll find it.
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I'd never written a novel before, and I wrote a novel, and that turned out OK.
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I enjoy my life.
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Philadelphia's a good science-fiction town. There are many professional writers here, like Michael Swanwick, Tom Purdom, Gregory Frost, Victoria McManus and others. There are professional artists such as Bob Walters and Tess Kissinger and Susan McAninley.
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You see people in Hollywood trying to make blockbuster after blockbuster, but it's not possible. There's some god up there saying, 'You will fail now.' But I suppose that's true of us all.
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'Idol' was groundbreaking television. I am very fortunate to have won the show at the time. 'Idol' changed my life, and I am thankful.
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Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
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As a memorial, I'd like a statue. Not of me, but a little modern statue, in marble or bronze, maybe of a bird, in a park where children could play and people going by could see it. On it, I'd just like it to say: 'Maeve Binchy, storyteller' and people could look at the name and remember that they'd seen it somewhere else.
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Too many times, the international community has not prepared the post-conflict period in time.
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Violence is a tool of the ignorant.
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If only we could pull out our brain and use only our eyes.
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I believe in music.
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I have lots of memories of my father. He was an incredible father. We all loved him to death.
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The trick to being a novelist is to act like an iceberg. Make it seem as if you're displaying only one-tenth of what you know, and the other nine-tenths isn't visible and never mind if that part is pure styrofoam!
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When you look at someone good like J.J. Abrams who gives you the spectacle and great action set pieces but also gives you character and great story and plotting and narrative, I think it's my job - and my intention - to do both.
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I look like an accountant. And no offense to accountants! There's some really cool accountants out there.
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Bands have good nights, and they have bad nights. I'm not going to cover up anything or pretend. For me, personally, that's just my thought process.
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Academic environments are generally characterised by the presence of peole who claim to understand more than in fact they do. Linguistic Philosophy has produced a great revolution, generating people who claim not to understand when in fact they do. Some achieve great virtuosity at it. Any beginner in philosophy can manage not to understand, say, Hegel, but I have heard people who were so advanced that they knew how not to understand writers of such limpid clarity as Bertrand Russell or A.J. Ayer.
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Childhood is Last Chance Gulch for happiness. After that, you know too much.
