“What is an artist? For every thousand people there's nine hundred doing the work, ninety doing well, nine doing good, and one… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
I was an awful critic. I operated on the assumption that there was an absolute scale of values against which art could… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
I doubt that art needed Ruskin any more than a moving train needs one of its passengers to shove it. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
You're familiar with the tragedies of antiquity, are you? The great homicidal classics? — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Because theatre is a story-telling art form, we feel entitled to assume that the playwright got there before we got there. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
It is not hard to understand modern art. If it hangs on a wall it's a painting, and if you can walk… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
To be an artist at all is like living in Switzerland during a world war. To be an artist in Zurich, in… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
“His radio plays include: If You’re Glad I’ll Be Frank, Albert’s Bridge (Italia Prize), Where Are They Now?, Artist Descending A Staircase,… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
“An artist is the magician put among men to gratify--capriciously--their urge for immortality. The temples are built and brought down around him,… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
“I learned three things in Zurich during the war. I wrote them down. Firstly, you’re either a revolutionary or you’re not, and… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
"The [London] Times" has published no rumours; it's only reported facts, namely that other, less responsible papers are publishing certain rumours. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
“When I was twelve I was obsessed. Everything was sex. Latin was sex. The dictionary fell open at 'meretrix', a harlot. You… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Art cannot be subordinate to its subject, otherwise it is not art but biography. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
“You are an over-excited little man, with a need for self-expression far beyond the scope of your natural gifts. This is not… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Nowadays, an artist is someone who makes art mean the things he does. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
To the engineer, all matter in the universe can be placed into one of two categories: (1) things that need to be… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
I was interested by the idea that artists working in a totalitarian dictatorship or tsarist autocracy are secretly and slightly shamefully envied… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
You can't but know that if you can capture the emotions of the audience as well as their minds, the play will… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
“In an age when the difference between prince and peasant was thought to be in the stars, Mr Tzara, art was naturally… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
An artist is the magician put among men to gratify - capriciously - their urge for immortality. — 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 Image
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 Image
Childhood is Last Chance Gulch for happiness. After that, you know too much. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image