Tom Stoppard Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• We give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain.

  Tom Stoppard

  Giving, Advice, Buckets

  11 Copy quote

• Save the gerund and screw the whale.

  Tom Stoppard

  Writing, Editing, Whales

  Tom Stoppard (2014). “The Real Thing”, p.12, Faber & Faber

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Children, Men, Clouds

  Tom Stoppard (2007). “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”, p.63, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  7 Copy quote

• Art cannot be subordinate to its subject, otherwise it is not art but biography.

  Tom Stoppard

  Art, Biographies, Subjects

  Tom Stoppard (2014). “The Invention of Love”, p.54, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  5 Copy quote

• He says his aim is poetry. One does not aim at poetry with pistols. At poets, perhaps.

  Tom Stoppard

  Doe, Pistols, Poet

  Tom Stoppard (2013). “Arcadia”, p.55, Faber & Faber

  4 Copy quote

• A circle is the longest distance to same point.

  Tom Stoppard

  Art, Philosophy, Distance

  5 Copy quote

• I cannot say that I write with any social objective. One writes because one loves writing, really.

  Tom Stoppard

  Writing, One Love, Social

  Tom Stoppard (1984). “Tom Stoppard, Professional foul: notes”

  7 Copy quote

• Rosencrantz: I don't believe in it anyway. Guildenstern: What? Rosencrantz: England. Guildenstern: Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then?

  Tom Stoppard

  Believe, England, Conspiracy

  6 Copy quote

• The House of Lords, an illusion to which I have never been able to subscribe - responsibility without power, the prerogative of the eunuch throughout the ages.

  Tom Stoppard

  Responsibility, House, Age

  Lord Malquist and Mr Moon (1966) pt. 6. Cf. Rudyard Kipling

  8 Copy quote

• In the theater there is often a tension, almost a contradiction, between the way real people would think and behave, and a kind of imposed dramaticness.

  Tom Stoppard

  Real, Thinking, People

  Tom Stoppard, Paul Delaney (1994). “Tom Stoppard in Conversation”, p.178, University of Michigan Press

  9 Copy quote

• Autumnal -- nothing to do with leaves. It is to do with a certain brownness at the edges of the day ... Brown is creeping up on us, take my word for it ... Russets and tangerine shades of old gold flushing the very outside edge of the senses... deep shining ochres, burnt umber and parchments of baked earth -- reflecting on itself and through itself, filtering the light. At such times, perhaps, coincidentally, the leaves might fall, somewhere, by repute. Yesterday was blue, like smoke.

  Tom Stoppard

  Fall, Light, Blue

  Tom Stoppard (1991). “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead”, Grove/Atlantic

  9 Copy quote

• I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you might nudge the world a little or make a poem that children will speak for you when you are dead.

  Tom Stoppard

  Children, Writing, Thinking

  Tom Stoppard (1999). “Arcadia”

  18 Copy quote

• The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means.

  Tom Stoppard

  Writing, Mean, Tragedy

  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1967) act 2. Cf. Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1979) 573:3

  8 Copy quote

• A man speaking sense to himself is no madder than a man speaking nonsense not to himself.

  Tom Stoppard

  Men, Nonsense

  7 Copy quote

• Be happy -- if you're not even happy, what's so good about surviving?

  Tom Stoppard

  Optimistic, Rosencrantz And Guildenstern, Surviving

  Tom Stoppard (2013). “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”, p.106, Faber & Faber

  9 Copy quote

• I write plays because dialogue is the most respectable way of contradicting myself.

  Tom Stoppard

  Writing, Play, Way

  Tom Stoppard, Paul Delaney (1994). “Tom Stoppard in Conversation”, p.49, University of Michigan Press

  10 Copy quote

• All your life you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye, and when something nudges it into outline it is like being ambushed by a grotesque.

  Tom Stoppard

  Eye, Nudge, Existentialism

  'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead' (1967) act 1

  7 Copy quote

• My whole life is waiting for the questions to which I have prepared answers.

  Tom Stoppard

  Life, Waiting, Answers

  Tom Stoppard (2011). “Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon: A Novel”, p.40, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  17 Copy quote

• 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.

  Tom Stoppard

  Philosophy, Self, People

  5 Copy quote

• As a playwright, you can cover a lot of waterfront without being able to hold your own against an expert in any of those areas. I have no illusions about that.

  Tom Stoppard

  Experts, Able, Illusion

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• Revolution is a trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering.

  Tom Stoppard

  Suffering, Politics, Revolution

  Tom Stoppard (2011). “Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon: A Novel”, p.12, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  9 Copy quote

• I'm attracted to the past.

  Tom Stoppard

  Past

  4 Copy quote

• ...Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that what is taken to be true. It's the currency if living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions. What do you assume?

  Tom Stoppard

  Taken, Differences, Long

  Tom Stoppard (2007). “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”, p.67, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  4 Copy quote

• We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.

  Tom Stoppard

  Integrity, Somewhere Else, History

  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1967) act 1

  7 Copy quote

• Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect. You'd have a chance at least. You could lie there thinking: Well, at least I'm not dead.

  Tom Stoppard

  Life, Lying, Thinking

  Tom Stoppard (1991). “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead”, Grove/Atlantic

  9 Copy quote

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