Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Quotes

• We must be born with an intuition of mortality. Before we know the word for it. Before we know that there are words. Out we come, bloodied and squalling, with the knowledge that for all the points of the compass, there's only one direction. And time is its only measure.

  Tom Stoppard

  One Direction, Intuition, Compass

  "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead". www.imdb.com. 1990.

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• Rosencrantz: We might as well be dead. Do you think death could possibly be a boat? Guildenstern: No, no, no... Death is...not. Death isn't. You take my meaning. Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not-be on a boat. Rosencrantz: I've frequently not been on boats. Guildenstern: No, no, no--what you've been is not on boats.

  Tom Stoppard

  Thinking, Negative, Might

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• 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

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

  Tom Stoppard

  Believe, England, Conspiracy

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• There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

  William Shakespeare

  Inspirational, Positive, Happiness

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [259]

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• Well, we'll know better next time.

  Tom Stoppard

  Next, Wells, Knows

  Tom Stoppard (2013). “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”, p.109, Faber & Faber

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• ...reality, the name we give to the common experience.

  Tom Stoppard

  Reality, Names, Giving

  Tom Stoppard (2007). “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”, p.21, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• 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.

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• Give us this day our daily mask.

  Tom Stoppard

  Bible, Prayer, Bread Of Life

  Tom Stoppard (2013). “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”, p.31, Faber & Faber

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• The colours red, blue and green are real. The colour yellow is a mystical experience shared by everybody.

  Tom Stoppard

  Real, Blue, Mystical Experiences

  Tom Stoppard (2013). “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”, p.13, Faber & Faber

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• O God, I could be bound in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space – were it not that I have bad dreams.

  William Shakespeare

  Dream, Kings, Science

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [263]

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• For all the compasses in the world, there's only one direction, and time is its only measure.

  Tom Stoppard

  One Direction, World, Compass

  "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead". Book by Tom Stoppard, August 24, 1966.

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• Life is a gamble, at terrible odds - if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.

  Tom Stoppard

  Life, Gambling, Odds

  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead act 3 (1967)

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• This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory.

  William Shakespeare

  Vapour, Earth, Cynicism

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [316]

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• We are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style.

  Tom Stoppard

  Style, Obscurity, Language

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

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• Audiences know what to expect, and that is all that they are prepared to believe in.

  Tom Stoppard

  Believe, Audience, Prepared

  Tom Stoppard (2007). “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”, p.84, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Actors! The mechanics of cheap melodrama! That isn't death! You scream and choke and sink to your knees but it doesn't bring death home to anyone- it doesn't catch them unawares and start the whisper in their skulls that says- 'One day you are going to die.

  Tom Stoppard

  Home, Skulls, One Day

  Tom Stoppard (2007). “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”, p.83, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one. A moment. In childhood. When it first occurred to you that you don’t go on forever. It must have been shattering, stamped into one’s memory. And yet, I can’t remember it.

  Tom Stoppard

  Memories, Forever, Childhood

  "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead". www.imdb.com. 1990.

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• We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.

  Tom Stoppard

  Inspirational, Memories, Eye

  Tom Stoppard (2007). “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”, p.61, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• There must have been a moment, at the beginning, were we could have said -- no. But somehow we missed it.

  Tom Stoppard

  Moments, Said, Has Beens

  Tom Stoppard (2007). “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”, p.125, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• It's silly to be depressed by it. I mean one thinks of it like being alive in a box, one keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead, which should make all the difference, shouldn't it? I mean, you'd never know you were in a box would you?... Even taking into account the fact that you're dead, it isn't a pleasant thought. Especially if you're dead, really. Ask yourself, if I asked you straight off-- I'm going to stuff you in this box now would you rather be alive or dead? Naturally you'd prefer to be alive. Life in a box is better than no life at all.

  Tom Stoppard

  Silly, Mean, Thinking

  "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead". www.imdb.com. 1990.

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• Life in a box is better than no life at all... I expect.

  Tom Stoppard

  Boxes

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

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• Rosencrantz: Shouldn't we be doing something--constructive? Guildenstern: What did you have in mind? ... A short, blunt human pyramid...?

  Tom Stoppard

  Pyramids, Mind, Blunt

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• Such thanks as fits a king's remembrance.

  William Shakespeare

  Kings, Remembrance, Thanks

  William Shakespeare, Oliver William Bourn Peabody, Samuel Weller Singer, Charles Symmons, John Payne Collier (1839). “The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare: King Lear. Romeo and Juliet. Hamlet. Othello”, p.289

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• 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

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