Tom Stoppard Quotes (116 quotes, page 2)

“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

“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.

Death

“A foreign correspondent is someone who lives in foreign parts and corresponds, usually in the form of essays containing no new facts. Otherwise he's someone who flies around from hotel to hotel and thinks that the most interesting thing about any story is the fact that he has arrived to cover it.”

Tom Stoppard Night and Day

Wagner, Act I
Night and Day (1978)

Thinking , Parting

“I will take his secret to the grave, telling people along the way. Betrayal is no sin if it is whimsical.”

Tom Stoppard The Invention of Love

Housman, Act I
The Invention of Love (1997)

People , Secret , Way , Betrayal

“I know the British press is very attached to the lobby system. It lets the journalists and the politicians feel proud of their traditional freedoms while giving the reader as much of the truth as they think is good for him.”

Tom Stoppard Night and Day

Mageeba, Act II
Night and Day (1978)

Truth , Feeling , Thinking , Freedom

“Chater: You insulted my wife in the gazebo yesterday evening!
Septimus: You are mistaken. I made love to your wife in the gazebo. She asked me to meet her there, I have her note somewhere, I dare say I could find it for you, and if someone is putting it about that I did not turn up, by God, sir, it is a slander.”

Tom Stoppard Arcadia

Act I
Arcadia (1993)

Love , God

“It is better of course to know useless things than to know nothing.”

Tom Stoppard

Misattributed
Source: Seneca, Epistle 88, as seen in the following: "You may sweep all these theories in with the superfluous troops of 'liberal' studies; the one class of men give me a knowledge that will be of no use to me, the other class do away with any hope of attaining knowledge. It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing. One set of philosophers offers no light by which I may direct my gaze toward the truth; the other digs out my very eyes and leaves me blind." Seneca: Epistle 88 http://www.stoics.com/seneca_epistles_book_2.html#%E2%80%98LXXXVIII1

“I'm showing an interest in your work. I thought you liked me showing an interest in your work. My showing. Save the gerund and screw the whale.”

Tom Stoppard The Real Thing

Max, Act I, scene I
The Real Thing (1982)

“Michael: "March here, march there, present arms, where's your cap?" — you've no idea, the whole Army's obsessed with playing at soldiers.”

Tom Stoppard

The Coast of Utopia: Voyage (2002)

Idea

“Their coarseness is the sinew of some kind of brute confidence which is the reason England is home to every shade of political exile. They don't give asylum out of respect for asylum-seekers, but out of respect for themselves. They invented personal liberty, and they know it, and they did it without having any theories about it. They value liberty because it's liberty.”

Tom Stoppard

Herzen
The Coast of Utopia: Salvage (2002)

Home , Confidence , Personality

“How the hell do I know what I find incredible? Credibility is an expanding field… Sheer disbelief hardly registers on the face before the head is nodding with all the wisdom of instant hindsight.”

Tom Stoppard Jumpers

George, Act I
Jumpers (1972)

Wisdom , Hell

“Miss Frobisher smiles, with little cause that I know of. If Jesus of Nazareth had had before him the example of Miss Frobisher getting through the Latin degree papers of the London University Examinations Board he wouldn’t have had to fall back on camels and the eyes of needles, and Miss Frobisher’s name would be a delightful surprise to encounter in Matthew, Chapter 19; as would, even more surprisingly, the London University Examinations Board. Your name is not Miss Frobisher? What is your name? Miss Burton. I’m very sorry. I stand corrected. If Jesus of Nazareth had had before him the example of Miss Burton getting through the… Oh, dear, I hope it is not I who have made you cry.”

Tom Stoppard The Invention of Love

Housman, Act I.
The Invention of Love (1997)

Smile , Hope , Universe , Cry

“Alexander: How the world must have been changing while I was holding it still. tnt in love.”

Tom Stoppard

The Coast of Utopia: Voyage (2002)

Love , World , Change

“Beauty is desired in order that it may be befouled; not for its own sake, but for the joy brought by the certainty of profaning it.”

Tom Stoppard

Elle est désirée pour la salir. Non pour elle-même, mais pour la joie goûtée dans la certitude de la profaner.
Misattributed
Source: Georges Bataille, Erotism (1962) [City Lights Books, 1991, trans. Mary Dalwood, ISBN 0872861902], part I, ch. XIII, p. 144.

Beauty , Joy

“The days of the digitals are numbered. The metaphor is built into them like a self-destruct mechanism.”

Tom Stoppard The Real Thing

Max, Act I, scene I.
Often misquoted as "The days of the digital watch are numbered."
The Real Thing (1982)

“This thing here, which looks like a wooden club, is actually several pieces of particular wood cunningly put together in a certain way so that the whole thing is sprung, like a dance floor. It's for hitting cricket balls with. If you get it right, the cricket ball will travel two hundred yards in four seconds, and all you've done is give it a knock like knocking the top off a bottle of stout, and it makes a noise like a trout taking a fly. What we're trying to do is to write cricket bats, so that when we throw up an idea and give it a little knock, it might…travel.”

Tom Stoppard The Real Thing

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

Way , Travel , Idea , Dance

“It seems pointless to be quoted if one isn't going to be quotable … it's better to be quotable than honest.”

Tom Stoppard

Interview http://books.google.com/books?id=PubwLmgAcd0C&q="It+seems+pointless+to+be+quoted+if+one+isn't+going+to+be+quotable"+"it's+better+to+be+quotable+than+honest"&pg=PA49#v=onepage with Janet Watts that appeared in The Guardian newspaper 21 March 1973.

Quotes

“Language is a finite instrument crudely applied to an infinity of ideas, and one consequence of the failure to take account of this is that modern philosophy has made itself ridiculous by analysing such statements as, "This is a good bacon sandwich," or, "Bedser had a good wicket."”

Tom Stoppard Jumpers

Source: George, Act II. Jumpers (1972)

Idea , Failure

“To be an artist at all is like living in Switzerland during a world war. To be an artist in Zurich, in 1917, implies a degree of self-absorption that would have glazed over the eyes of Narcissus.”

Tom Stoppard Travesties

Carr, Act I
Travesties (1974)

War , World

“Most men give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain.”

Tom Stoppard

Misattributed
Source: William R(ounseville) Alger, American clergyman and writer [1822-1905]; reported in Raphael Lewin, Ed., The New Era (1872), Volume 2, p. 315.

Men

“When I was at school, on certain afternoons we all had to do what was called Labour — weeding, sweeping, sawing logs for the boiler-room, that sort of thing; but if you had a chit from Matron you were let off to spend the afternoon messing about in the Art Room. Labour or Art. And you've got a chit for life? Where did you get it? What is an artist? For every thousand people there's nine hundred doing the work, ninety doing well, nine doing good, and one lucky bastard who's the artist.”

Tom Stoppard Travesties

Carr, Act I
Travesties (1974)

Life , People , School , Art

“When someone disagrees with you on a moral point you assume that he is one step behind in his thinking, and he assumes that he has gone one step ahead. But I take both parts, O'Hara, leapfrogging myself along the great moral issues, refuting myself and rebutting the refutation towards a truth that must be the compound of two opposite half-truths. And you never reach it because there is always something more to say.”

Tom Stoppard

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

Truth , Thinking , Parting

“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 Jumpers

George, Act I
Jumpers (1972)

“(Falls down in a drunken stupor): Let's sit down.”

Tom Stoppard

Ogarev.
The Coast of Utopia: Salvage (2002)

“My whole life is waiting for the questions to which I have prepared answers.”

Tom Stoppard

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

Life , Question , Waiting

“The House of Lords, an illusion to which I have never been able to subscribe — responsibility without power, the prerogative of the eunuch throughout the ages.”

Tom Stoppard

This is a reference to a quote of Rudyard Kipling, "Power without responsibility — the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages," which became widely known after being quoted by prime minister Stanley Baldwin in a speech of 1931-03-17.
Source: Lord Malquist and Mr Moon (1966), Ch. 6: An Honourable Death

Age , Housing

“The media. It sounds like a convention of spiritualists.”

Tom Stoppard Night and Day

Ruth, Act I
Night and Day (1978)

“We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it. The missing plays of Sophocles will turn up piece by piece, or be written again in another language. Ancient cures for diseases will reveal themselves once more. Mathematical discoveries glimpsed and lost to view will have their time again. You do not suppose, my lady, that if all of Archimedes had been hiding in the great library of Alexandria, we would be at a loss for a corkscrew?”

Tom Stoppard Arcadia

Septimus, Act I
Arcadia (1993)

Life , Disease , Travel , Mathematics

“Turgenev: The names for things don't come first. Words stagger after, hopelessly trying to become the sensation.”

Tom Stoppard

The Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck (2002)

“I write plays because dialogue is the most respectable way of contradicting myself.”

Tom Stoppard

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

Way

“I still believe that if your aim is to change the world, journalism is a more immediate short-term weapon.”

Tom Stoppard

Source: Interview, The Guardian (London, 1988-03-18).

World , Change

“When Harold Pinter was lobbying to have London's Comedy Theatre renamed the Pinter Theatre, Stoppard wrote back: "Have you thought, instead, of changing your name to Harold Comedy?"”

Tom Stoppard

Interviews and profiles
Source: William Langley, "Profile: Sir Tom Stoppard," The Telegraph (2006-11-06) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jsessionid=W4GGMOS2UYBMJQFIQMFSFFWAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/opinion/2006/06/11/do1107.xml

Change

“Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them.”

Tom Stoppard

Misattributed
Source: Elbert Hubbard, "J.B. Runs Things," Short Stories and Index: Elbert Hubbard's Selected Writings, Part 14 (1923) [Kessinger Publishing, 1998, ISBN 0766103978], p. 278.

Personality

“Revolution is a trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering; the capacity for self-indulgence changes hands.”

Tom Stoppard

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

Suffering , Change

“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 Jumpers

George, Act I
Jumpers (1972)