Tom Stoppard: Trending quotes

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Tom Stoppard: 232 quotes9 likes

“Uncertainty is the normal state.”

Tom Stoppard book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.”

Tom Stoppard

1920s, Prejudices, Third Series (1922)

“Each move is dictated by the previous one--that is the meaning of order”

Tom Stoppard book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“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.”

Tom Stoppard book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“You can't treat royalty like people with normal perverted desires.”

Tom Stoppard book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“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 book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty—and, by which definition, a philosopher—dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; in his two-fold security.”

Tom Stoppard book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“An essentially private man who wished his total indifference to public notice to be universally recognized.”

Tom Stoppard Travesties

Carr, Act I
Source: Travesties (1974)

“Septimus. When we have found all the mysteries and lost all the meaning, we will be all alone, on an empty shore.

Thomasina. Then we will dance. Is this a waltz?”

Tom Stoppard Arcadia

Act II
Source: Arcadia (1993)

“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.”

Tom Stoppard Arcadia

Source: Arcadia

“Well, we'll know better next time.”

Tom Stoppard book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“I've lost all capacity for disbelief. I'm not sure that I could even rise to a little gentle scepticism.”

Tom Stoppard book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“Success in life is to maintain this ecstasy, to burn always with this hard gemlike flame.”

Tom Stoppard The Invention of Love

Source: The Invention of Love

“Public postures have the configuration of private derangement.”

Tom Stoppard The Real Thing

Henry, Act I, scene II
The Real Thing (1982)

“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. It takes courage to sit down and be counted.”

Tom Stoppard Travesties

Tzara, Act I
Travesties (1974)

“Dotty: Archie says the Church is a monument to irrationality.
George: … The National Gallery is a monument to irrationality! Every concert hall is a monument to irrationality! — and so is a nicely kept garden, or a lover's favour, or a home for stray dogs! You stupid woman, if rationality were the criterion for things being allowed to exist, the world would be one gigantic field of soya beans!”

Tom Stoppard Jumpers

Act I
Jumpers (1972)

“Mageeba: Do you know what I mean by a relatively free press, Mr. Wagner?
Wagner: Not exactly, sir, no.
Mageeba: I mean a free press which is edited by one of my relatives.”

Tom Stoppard Night and Day

Act II.
Night and Day (1978)