Tom Stoppard: Trending quotes (page 4)

“I began my talk by saying that I had not written my plays for purposes of discussion. At once, I felt a ripple of panic run through the hall. I suddenly realised why. To everyone present, discussion was the whole point of drama. That was why the faculty had been endowed — that was why all those buildings had been put up! I had undermined the entire reason for their existence.”

Tom Stoppard

"Tom Stoppard," profile by Kenneth Tynan, The New Yorker (1977-12-19).
Interviews and profiles

“If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.”

Tom Stoppard

Misattributed
Source: Abraham Sutzkever (born 1913), quoted in "Yiddish Poet Celebrates Life with His Language" by Joseph Berger, The New York Times (1985-03-17), Section 1, page 38.

Childhood

“My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful; but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful.”

Tom Stoppard

Misattributed
Source: Hermann Weyl as quoted by Freeman Dyson: "Characteristic of Weyl was an aesthetic sense which dominated his thinking on all subjects. He once said to me, half-joking, 'My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful; but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful.'" - Freeman Dyson, "Obituary of Hermann Weyl," Nature (1956-03-10), pp. 457-458.

Beauty

“I had no idea Gwendolen knew any foreign languages, and I am not sure that I approve. It's the sort of thing that can only broaden a girl's mind.”

Tom Stoppard Travesties

Carr, Act I
Travesties (1974)

Girl , Idea

“Tzara: Causality is no longer fashionable owing to the war.
Carr: How illogical, since the war itself had causes. I forget what they were, but it was all in the papers at the time. Something about brave little Belgium, wasn't it?
Tzara: Was it? I thought it was Serbia…
Carr: Brave little Serbia…? No, I don't think so. The newspapers would never have risked calling the British public to arms without a proper regard for succinct alliteration.”

Tom Stoppard Travesties

Act I
Travesties (1974)

War , Fashion , Thinking , Time

“Junk journalism is the evidence of a society that has got at least one thing right, that there should be nobody with the power to dictate where responsible journalism begins.”

Tom Stoppard Night and Day

Milne, Act I.
Night and Day (1978)

“A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar— you pretend it's not there.”

Tom Stoppard

Misattributed
Source: Darryl Hannah http://www.idolpleasures.com/daryl_hannah.shtml.

“From principles is derived probability, but truth or certainty is obtained only from facts.”

Tom Stoppard

From principles is derived probability, but truth is obtained only from facts. - Jesse Olney (1798 - 1872), The National Preceptor (Goodwin, 1830), Lesson LXXXV: "Select Sentences," rule # 19 (p. 171).
Misattributed

Truth

“Alexander: No spunk, simple as that! Your brother's an army deserter!
Michael: Oh yes, I've resigned my commission.
Alexander: He's refusing to return to duty.
Michael: On grounds of ill health, Papa. I'm sick of the Army.
Alexander: No discipline, that's the problem!
Michael: No, it's riddled with discipline, that's the problem. That and Poland.”

Tom Stoppard

The Coast of Utopia: Voyage (2002)

Health , Problem

“Bakunin: Left to themselves people are noble, generous, uncorrupted, they'd create a completely new kind of society if only people weren't so blind, stupid and selfish.
Herzen: Is that the same people or different people?
Bakunin: The same people.”

Tom Stoppard

The Coast of Utopia: Salvage (2002)

People , Stupidity , Selfishness

“I'd push the lot of you over a cliff myself. Except the one in the wheelchair, I think I'd lose the sympathy vote before people had time to think it through.”

Tom Stoppard Arcadia

Bernard, Act II
Arcadia (1993)

People , Thinking , Time

“Good things, when short, are twice as good.”

Tom Stoppard

Misattributed
Source: Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Wordly Wisdom (Oráculo Manual) Maxim #105 http://www.humanistictexts.org/gracian.htm.

“Bennett seems to be showing alarming signs of irony. I have always found that irony among the lower orders is the first sign of an awakening social consciousness. It remains to be seen whether it will grow into an armed seizure of the means of production, distribution and exchange, or spend itself in liberal journalism.”

Tom Stoppard Travesties

Carr, Act I
Travesties (1974)

“Herzen: Marx is a bourgeois from the anus up.
Natalie : Alexander! I won't have that word…
Herzen: Sorry, middle-class.”

Tom Stoppard

The Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck (2002)

“Bakunin: Act first! The ideas will follow, and if not — well, it's progress”

Tom Stoppard

The Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck (2002)

Idea

“If you associate enough with older people who do enjoy their lives, who are not stored away in any golden ghettos, you will gain a sense of continuity and of the possibility for a full life.”

Tom Stoppard

Misattributed
Source: Margaret Mead, quoted in "Growing Old in America: An Introduction with Margaret Mead" by Grace Hechinger, Family Circle (1977-07-26), p. 27.

Life , People , Sense

“I never got used to the way the house Trots fell into the jargon back in Grimsby — I mean, on any other subject, like the death of the novel, or the sex life of the editor's secretary, they spoke ordinary English, but as soon as they started trying to get me to join the strike it was as if their brains had been taken out and replaced by one of those little golf-ball things you get in electric typewriters… "Betrayal"… "Confrontation"… "Management"… My God, you'd need a more supple language than that to describe an argument between two amoebas.”

Tom Stoppard Night and Day

Milne, Act I
Night and Day (1978)

Life , Death , God , Sex

“Since we cannot hope for order let us withdraw with style from the chaos.”

Tom Stoppard

Source: Lord Malquist and Mr Moon (1966), Ch. I: Dramatis Personae and Other Coincidences.

Hope

“I agree with everything you say, but I would attack to the death your right to say it.”

Tom Stoppard

Source: Lord Malquist and Mr Moon (1966), Ch. 2: A Couple of Deaths and Exits.