Tom Stoppard Quotes
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Rosencrantz: Shouldn't we be doing something--constructive? Guildenstern: What did you have in mind? ... A short, blunt human pyramid...?
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To be frank: the translations that often sound bad in the mouths of the actors, these have often been done by linguists.
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Beauty is desired in order that it may be befouled; not for its own sake, but for the joy brought by the certainty of profaning it.
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We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see.
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I smoke too much whether it's going well or badly. After all these years, I definitely associate having a pen in my hand with having an ashtray just out of eye line.
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How the hell do I know what I find incredible? Credibility is an expanding field... Sheer disbelief hardly registers on the face before the head is nodding with all the wisdom of instant hindsight.
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Rewriting isn't just about dialogue, it's the order of the scenes, how you finish a scene, how you get into a scene. All these final decisions are best made when you're there, watching. It's really enjoyable, but you've got to be there at the director's invitation. You can't just barge in and say, "I'm the writer."
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The names for things don't come first. Words stagger after, hopelessly trying to become the sensation.
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I read for interest and enjoyment, and when I cease to enjoy it I stop.
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I can put two and two together, you know. Do not think you are dealing with a man who has lost his grapes.
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Be happy -- if you're not even happy, what's so good about surviving?
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The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means.
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Carnal embrace is sexual congress, which is the insertion of the male genital organ into the female genital organ for purposes of procreation and pleasure. Fermat’s last theorem, by contrast, asserts that when x, y and z are whole numbers each raised to power of n, the sum of the first two can never equal the third when n is greater than 2.
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We drift down time, clutching at straws. But what good's a brick to a drowning man?
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Suicide is no more than a trick played on the calendar.
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The universe is deterministic all right, just like Newton said, I mean it's trying to be, but the only thing going wrong is people fancying people who aren't supposed to be in that part of the plan.
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"The [London] Times" has published no rumours; it's only reported facts, namely that other, less responsible papers are publishing certain rumours.
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I don't think Stoppardian has a precise definition.
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If an idea's worth having once, it's worth having twice.
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Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light.
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Death followed by eternity the worst of both worlds. It is a terrible thought.
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Normally, even if you're on the set for 12 hours, there may be only a moment or two when you are actually useful.
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What a fine persecution—to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.
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If you were handed power on a plate you'd be left fighting over a plate.