My life feels, week to week, incomplete to the level of being pointless if I am not in preparation for the next… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Embarrassingly enough, I often can't remember how I came to write something. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
The possibilities are infinite with new writing; every time you open a new script, there's no limit to what it might contain. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
I write plays because dialogue is the most respectable way of contradicting myself. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
I wish I could remember how to write a play. I can't remember how they happened. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Everybody I know is writing plays twice a year. It's sort of making me feel I am not up to much. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
It's really hard to talk about writing, and I'm usually conscious if I'm misleading people or misleading the questioner, because the problem… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
The ordinary-sized stuff which is our lives, the things people write poetry about—clouds—daffodils—waterfalls—what happens in a cup of coffee when the cream… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
The thing that happens remarkably often is that the people who are writing a dissertation believe they need to speak to me… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
I don't want to come over as some boringly self-deprecating person. But I don't see myself as a groundbreaking writer in the… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
If I had been asked to write 1,200 words for a newspaper tomorrow, on any subject, I would just do it rather… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
I'm not one of those writers who insist they don't read reviews and don't care much about them. I do read them,… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Sometimes directors feel a script needs something, but they're not sure what it is, so they show it to a friend; if… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
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… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
One of the nice things about the world of filmmaking is that you make friends in the business. Sometimes directors feel a… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Rewriting isn't just about dialogue, it's the order of the scenes, how you finish a scene, how you get into a scene.… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
The trouble is, I can't find a part of myself where you're not important. I write in order to be worth your… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Words... They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
It's probably unprecedented for a filmmaker simply to take the writers' script and treat it as the instructions on the package. What… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Even when the writing seems very frivolous, I'm puritanical. I don't mean my subject matter. It's that I'm almost pathologically incapable of… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
For a long time I managed to think two things simultaneously, that I am actually a good playwright, and that the next… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
I'm not like some other writers: I have no actual urgent need or desire to add to what's written. You write it;… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
If I wanted to change the world, the last thing I would do is write a play. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share
If you want to change something by Tuesday, theater is no good. Journalism is what does that. But, if you want to just alter… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share
Childhood is Last Chance Gulch for happiness. After that, you know too much. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share
After all these years, I definitely associate having a pen in my hand with having an ashtray just out of eye line. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share
The universe is deterministic all right, just like Newton said, I mean it's trying to be, but the only thing going wrong is people… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share
For me, human rights simply endorse a view of life and a set of moral values that are perfectly clear to an eight-year-old child.… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share
“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… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share
Dying is not romantic, and death is not a game which will soon be over... Death is not anything... death is not... It's the… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share
For 10 years of my life, 3 times a day, I thanked the Lord for what I was about to receive and thanked him… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share
You should not translate for more than two hours at a time. After that, you lose your edge, the language becomes clumsy, rigid. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share
No matter how imperfect things are, if you've got a free press everything is correctable, and without it everything is concealable. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share
We must be born with an intuition of mortality. Before we know the word for it. Before we know that there are words. Out… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share
