Tom Stoppard quotes - page 8

Because children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's purpose is to be a child. (Tom Stoppard)
Never believe in mirrors or newspapers. View quote
Tom Stoppard
All mystical experience is coincidence and vice versa, of course. View quote
Tom Stoppard
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! View quote
Tom Stoppard
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. View quote
Tom Stoppard
If you took away everything in the world that had to be invented, there'd be nothing left except a lot of people getting rained on. View quote
Tom Stoppard
I don't think I can be expected to take seriously any game which takes less than three days to reach its conclusion. View quote
Tom Stoppard
Between 'just desserts' and 'tragic irony' we are given quite a lot of scope for our particular talent. Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go when things have got about as bad as they reasonably get. View quote
Tom Stoppard
I don't keep a diary and I throw away nearly all the paper I might have kept. I don't keep an archive. There's something worrying about my make-up that I try to leave no trace of myself apart from my plays. View quote
Tom Stoppard
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. View quote
Tom Stoppard
Sometimes I watch a scene I've written, and occasionally I think, "Oh, for God's sake, shut up." (Tom Stoppard)
In January 1962, when I was the author of one and a half unperformed plays, I attended a student production of 'The Birthday Party' at the Victoria Rooms in Bristol. Just before it began, I realised that Harold Pinter was sitting in front of me. View quote
Tom Stoppard
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. View quote
Tom Stoppard
I like pop music. I consider rock 'n' roll to be a branch of pop music. View quote
Tom Stoppard
The idea that all the people locked up in mental hospitals are sane while all the people walking about are mad is merely a literary cliche, put about by people who should be locked up. I assure you there is not much in it. Taken as a whole, the sane are out there the sick are in here. For example you are in here because you have delusions that sane people are put in mental hospitals. View quote
Tom Stoppard
I'm a conservative kind of person. I don't think rightwing is quite the same thing. But I acknowledge my conservatism of temperament. View quote
Tom Stoppard
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. View quote
Tom Stoppard
A genuine love of learning is one of the two delinquencies which cause blindness and lead a young man to ruin. View quote
Tom Stoppard
When I think of how things could have turned out, I feel as if I've dodged, not just bullets, but 6mm shells. View quote
Tom Stoppard
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. View quote
Tom Stoppard
Traitors hoist by their own petard?--or victims of the gods?--we shall never know! (Tom Stoppard)
I didn't feel good about cutting out parts of very famous speeches, ... You think you somehow need all of it or you get none of it, but that's not true. View quote
Tom Stoppard
Death followed by eternity ... the worst of both worlds. It is a terrible thought. View quote
Tom Stoppard
I'm offended by things and take pathetic little stands against them. View quote
Tom Stoppard
Fatherlessness didn't strike me as being an event. It was a state of life. View quote
Tom Stoppard