People think there's a choice between smoking and immortality, but we've all got to die of something. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
When I think of how things could have turned out, I feel as if I've dodged, not just bullets, but 6mm shells. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Because children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's purpose is to be a child — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Every age thinks it's the modern age, but this one really is. Electricity is going to change everything. Everything! — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Seduced her? Every time I turned round she was up a library ladder. In the end I gave in. That reminds me—I… — 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 feel that when I began writing, I had a need to know more about the play before I got into it.… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
A foreign correspondent is someone who lives in foreign parts and corresponds, usually in the form of essays containing no new facts.… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Because children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's purpose is to be a child.… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
I think theater ought to be theatrical ... you know, shuffling the pack in different ways so that it's -- there's always… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
When you stir your rice pudding, Septimus, the spoonful of jam spreads itself round making red trails like the picture of a… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
It's silly to be depressed by it. I mean one thinks of it like being alive in a box, one keeps forgetting… — 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
“Fifty-five crystal spheres geared to God’s crankshaft is my idea of a satisfying universe. I can’t think of anything more trivial than… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
I don't think I can be expected to take seriously any game which takes less than three days to reach its conclusion. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect. You'd have a chance at least. You could lie… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Sometimes I watch a scene I've written, and occasionally I think, "Oh, for God's sake, shut up." — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
In the theater there is often a tension, almost a contradiction, between the way real people would think and behave, and a… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
I'm a conservative kind of person. I don't think rightwing is quite the same thing. But I acknowledge my conservatism of temperament. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
I can put two and two together, you know. Do not think you are dealing with a man who has lost his… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
I think that the present is worth attention, one shouldn't sacrifice it to future conceptions of, of this future or that future. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
I know the British press is very attached to the lobby system. It lets the journalists and the politicians feel proud of… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Rosencrantz: We might as well be dead. Do you think death could possibly be a boat? Guildenstern: No, no, no... Death is...not.… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order,… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Theater is still a medium which attracts young writers. You'd think that it would be all over by now, with television and… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
I didn't feel good about cutting out parts of very famous speeches, ... You think you somehow need all of it or… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
You think human nature is a beast, that it must be put in a cage. But it's the cage that makes the… — 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
