Tom Stoppard Quotes
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I'm a conservative kind of person. I don't think rightwing is quite the same thing. But I acknowledge my conservatism of temperament.
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If enough things that are untrue are said about you, no one will know what really is true.
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If knowledge isn't self-knowledge it isn't doing much, mate. Is the universe expanding? Is it contracting? Is it standing on one leg and singing 'When Father Painted the Parlour'? Leave me out. I can expand my universe without you. 'She walks into beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies, and all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes.
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People think there's a choice between smoking and immortality, but we've all got to die of something.
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My whole life is waiting for the questions to which I have prepared answers.
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Any revival in which I am involved is liable to change.
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War is capitalism with the gloves off and many who go to war know it but they go to war because they don't want to be a hero.
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James Joyce - an essentially private man who wished his total indifference to public notice to be universally recognized.
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Public postures have the configuration of private derangement.
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Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.
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He's never known anything like it! But then, he has never known anything to write home about, so this is nothing to write home about.
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Chater: You dare to call me that. I demand satisfaction! Septimus: Mrs Chater demanded satisfaction and now you are demanding satisfaction. I cannot spend my time day and night satisfying the demands of the Chater family.
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On Broadway, only the fire doors separate you from the sidewalk and you're lucky if the sound of a police car doesn't rip the envelope twice a night.
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I think theater ought to be theatrical ... you know, shuffling the pack in different ways so that it's -- there's always some kind of ambush involved in the experience. You're being ambushed by an unexpected word, or by an elephant falling out of the cupboard, whatever it is.
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There must have been a moment, at the beginning, were we could have said -- no. But somehow we missed it.
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You can persuade a man to believe almost anything provided he is clever enough, but it is much more difficult to persuade someone less clever.
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I've never written an original piece for film; all the original things I've done are for the stage.
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The fact is that people are attracted to new work and by new work.
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It was a different planet in 1967, the Broadway theatre. It had a little ashtray clamped to the back of every seat and the author got 10% of the gross.
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Obviously, you would give your life for your children, or give them the last biscuit on the plate. But to me, the trick in life is to take that sense of generosity between kin, make it apply to the extended family and to your neighbour, your village and beyond.
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The whole philosophy of modern times is to dissolve distinctions between individuals and deal with them as large collections of people. It's essentially self-interested on the part of authority.
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In England the rich own the poor and the men own the women.
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Revolution is a trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering.
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I was so thrilled being a reporter, because it gave you the kind of access to people that you wouldn't ever get to meet.