You don't often get a proposal to do Tolstoy for a really interesting director - that's easy to say yes to. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
People think I'm very nice, you know. And I'm not as nice as they think. — 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
If you don't know what is being said, the rest of the actor's work is wasted. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
You are the plays you write. How on earth could you write them otherwise? They're projections of your own predilections. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
I think probably I've been influenced by Chekhov and Walt Disney, if you see what I mean. — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
You end up going to school plays quite a bit as a parent, there are a lot of kids who are doing… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
When you write, it's making a certain kind of music in your head. There's a rhythm to it, a pulse, and on… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Chekhov directors and Chekhov actors love working on his plays because there seems to be no end to what you can find… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Very often in Chekhov, where he exhibits a little bit of human behavior that you recognize as true, you give a little… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
You can't go around chasing your own plays and showing up every time somebody does one somewhere. You just cross your fingers… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
When I was 20, in 1957, and maybe you would say I was old enough to know better, but nevertheless, I was… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
The notion that the 'leader' has the right to ask huge sacrifices of your generation for a notional future paradise - if… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
The whole thing about writing a play is that it's all about controlling the flow of information traveling from the stage to… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Possibly because I did start off as a journalist, my starting point has always been that you've got to keep an audience… — 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
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
Theater in New York is nearer to the street. In London, you have to go deep into the building, usually, to reach… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
There are certain sorts of jokes which have only to do with the substitution of the unexpected word in a familiar context.… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
When you try to grasp the way the Western world is going, you see that we are on a ratchet towards a… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
If you are well known at something else, you get points for doing stuff which lots of other people do, and much… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
In Chekhov, everything blends into its opposite, just fractionally, and this is sort of unsettling. And that's why you end up 100… — 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
You do know what's coming up when you're translating. I suppose the concentration, then, is on finding a formulation which is speakable… — 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,… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
If you let the plot be determined by what you feel is in the character's mind at that point, it may not… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
When 'The Dark Side of the Moon' was a new album in 1973, a friend of mine walked into my room where… — 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'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
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
One feels that the past stays the way you left it, whereas the present is in constant movement; it's unstable all around… — 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 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
