Misattributed To Tom Stoppard Quotes

Beauty is desired in order that it may be befouled; not for its own sake, but for the joy brought by the certainty of profaining it. ~ Georges Bataille

Any revival in which I am involved is liable to change. ~ Tom Stoppard

I was delighted to not go to university. I couldn't wait to be out of education. ~ Tom Stoppard

If I had been asked to write 1,200 words for a newspaper tomorrow, on any subject, I would just do it rather than leave a white hole in the page. And I think it's a very healthy attitude to take to writing anything. ~ Tom Stoppard

Before Plato could describe love, the loved one had to be invented. We would never love anybody if we could see past our invention. Bosie is my creation, my poem. In the mirror of invention, love discovered itself. ~ Tom Stoppard

I'm not like some other writers: I have no actual urgent need or desire to add to what's written. You write it; if you're lucky, it's performed, and that's the end of the whole thing. ~ Tom Stoppard

If the audience is made to do not enough work, they resent it without knowing it. Too much and they get lost. There's a perfect pace to be found. And a perfect place that is different for every line of the play. ~ Tom Stoppard

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. ~ Tom Stoppard

The world outside of me has no meaning independent of my thinking it. (pauses to look) I look out of the window. A garden. Trees. Grass. A young woman in a chair reading a book. I think: chair. So she is sitting. I think: book. So she is reading. Now the young woman touches her hair where it's come undone. But how can we be sure there is a world of phenomena, a woman reading in a garden? Perhaps the only thing that's real is my sensory experience, which has the form of a woman reading- in a universe which is in fact empty! But Immanuel Kant says- no! Because what I perceive as reality includes concepts which I cannot experience through the senses. Time and space. Cause and effect. Relations between things. Without me there is something wrong with this picture. The trees, the grass, the woman are merely- oh, she's coming! (nervously)- she's coming in here-! I say, don't leave!-where are you going? ~ Tom Stoppard

The fact is that people are attracted to new work and by new work. ~ Tom Stoppard

I seem to be failing in my intention to be as boring as I possibly can be for self-protection. ~ Tom Stoppard

To be 64 is appalling, so what does it matter being 65? ~ Tom Stoppard

I like pop music. I consider rock 'n' roll to be a branch of pop music. ~ Tom Stoppard

It was precisely this notion of infinite series which in the sixth century BC led the Greek philosopher Zeno to conclude that since an arrow shot towards a target first had to cover half the distance, and then half the remainder, and then half the remainder after that, and so on ad infinitum, the result was, as I will now demonstrate, that though an arrow is always approaching its target, it never quite gets there, and Saint Sebastian died of fright. ~ Tom Stoppard

I just happen to know quite a lot of what happened in Czechoslovakia between 1968 and the fall of Communism. ~ Tom Stoppard

It is better to be quotable than to be honest. ~ Tom Stoppard

That I have the right to express myself freely at all times in all circumstances entails the idea that free speech is a 'basic human right' possessed by each individual, and, as such, trumps the interests of the society or group, including my neighbour. ~ Tom Stoppard

My only companion from the outside world during nineteen years of isolation has been my personal hatred of Thursday Next. It's kind of like the old me suddenly taking over, and I promised myself that this was how I would act if I ever saw you.'
'I have the same thing, but with Tom Stoppard,' I said.
'You'd kill Tom Stoppard?'
'Not at all. I promised myself many years ago that I would throw myself at his feet and scream "I'm not worthy!" if I ever met him, so now if we're ever at the same party or something, I have to be at pains to avoid him. It would be undignified, you see - for him and for me. ~ Jasper Fforde

I'm not that taken with Freudian perspectives. They seem to be overcomplicated. ~ Tom Stoppard

I've never really worked out this thought, and I don't know if I'm really conscious of it, but I can see there's an attraction about writing about a period that's over and isn't going to change colour while you look at it. ~ Tom Stoppard

A man speaking sense to himself is no madder than a man speaking nonsense not to himself. ~ Tom Stoppard

We ransomed our dignity to the clouds. ~ Tom Stoppard

I proudly tell people, 'I have no computer,' so as not to be ashamed of having no computer. ~ Tom Stoppard

It takes character to withstand the rigours of indolence. ~ Tom Stoppard

What a fine persecution - to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened. ~ Tom Stoppard

I don't find it easy to think of good stuff to write about. ~ 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. ~ Tom Stoppard

I got dizzy," he explained.
I should think you did. What were you doing?'
Nothing," said Moon. "I was trying to face one way or the other and I got confused and fell over."
Let that be my epitaph. ~ Tom Stoppard

What freedom means, is being allowed to sing in my bath as loudly as will not interfere with my neighbour's freedom to sing a different tune in his. ~ Tom Stoppard

Embarrassingly enough, I often can't remember how I came to write something. ~ Tom Stoppard

Pirates could happen to anyone. ~ Tom Stoppard

What are a friend's books for if not to be borrowed? ~ Tom Stoppard

Time is short, life is short, there's a lot to know. So I skip the entertainers in the newspaper now. I just haven't got time. ~ Tom Stoppard

If we can't arrange our own happiness, it's a conceit beyond vulgarity to arrange the happiness of those who come after us. ~ Tom Stoppard

I went to an English school and was brought up in English. So I don't feel Czech. ~ Tom Stoppard

If you let the plot be determined by what you feel is in the character's mind at that point, it may not turn out to be a very good play, but at least it will be a play where people are behaving in a kind of truthful way. ~ Tom Stoppard

Every age thinks it's the modern age, but this one really is. Electricity is going to change everything. Everything! ~ Tom Stoppard

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

I'm hopeless at looking into myself and trying to see how things are working and why. ~ Tom Stoppard

There is presumably a calendar date a moment when the onus of proof passed from the atheist to the believer, when, quite suddenly, secretly, the noes had it. ~ Tom Stoppard

I don't know that I want to share all my most intimate secrets. ~ Tom Stoppard

Guil: …The truth is, we value your company, for want of any other. We have been left so much to our own devices - after a while one welcomes the uncertainty of being left to other people's.
Player: Uncertainty is the normal state. You're nobody special.
[He makes to leave again. Guil loses his cool.]
Guil: But for God's sake what are we supposed to do?!
Player: Relax. Respond. That's what people do. You can't go through life questioning your situation at every turn.
Guil: But we don't know what's going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don't know how to act.
Player: Act natural. You know why you're here at least.
Guil: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.
Player: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. it's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honored. ~ Tom Stoppard

Everybody I know is writing plays twice a year. It's sort of making me feel I am not up to much. ~ Tom Stoppard

Theatre is a series of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster. ~ Tom Stoppard

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

There are too many things I find it difficult to say 'no' to. ~ Tom Stoppard