Writer Quotes by Tom Stoppard

A writer doesn't really have much of a function on a movie set.

— Tom Stoppard

I read for interest and enjoyment, and when I cease to enjoy it I stop.

— Tom Stoppard

I write out of my intellectual experience.

— Tom Stoppard

I'm very unhappy about my entire life if my writing is going wrong.

— Tom Stoppard

I think I'm a difficult conventional writer.

— Tom Stoppard

I don't find it easy to think of good stuff to write about.

— Tom Stoppard

Of all forms of fiction, autobiography is the most gratuitous.

— Tom Stoppard

What are a friend's books for if not to be borrowed?

— Tom Stoppard

A publisher many years ago asked if I'd like to write a novel for £50. And I said, 'Absolutely.'

— Tom Stoppard

Embarrassingly enough, I often can't remember how I came to write something.

— Tom Stoppard

Chekhov understood that people are mysterious and can't be reduced to what we nowadays call 'motivation.'

— Tom Stoppard

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

The whole excitement for writing anything is quite intense. And for a day or two, you think you've done everything extremely well.…

— Tom Stoppard

I never had any frustration about writing uncredited. I always felt that the satisfaction of doing it was in the doing of…

— Tom Stoppard

If I am on a journey where I only have time to read one-and-a-half books, I never know which one-and-a-half I'll feel…

— Tom Stoppard

Sometimes people are so close to the material, they miss an important cross-reference. You can't drop this line because half an hour…

— Tom Stoppard

It's very common for people to recommend something to me because they're going on what I've already written, when, what really is…

— Tom Stoppard

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

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

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

One of the nice things about the world of filmmaking is that you make friends in the business. Sometimes directors feel a…

— Tom Stoppard

“I have three copies of the first edition, which sold in double figures, speaking loosely; there was a moment when Blond's 'Lord…

— Tom Stoppard

I'm going to be dead before I read the books I'm going to read.

— Tom Stoppard

can only write about what bites you.

— Tom Stoppard

When I was in my teens, I was very, very keen on being the author of a book. What the book was…

— Tom Stoppard

You always end up with too much, so it's good to be part of the conversation about not just what you can…

— Tom Stoppard

People have quite a simple idea about 'Anna Karenina.' They feel that the novel is entirely about a young married woman who…

— Tom Stoppard

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

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