Quotes By Tom Stoppard

I'm a conservative kind of person. I don't think rightwing is quite the same thing. But I acknowledge my conservatism of temperament.

For a long time I managed to think two things simultaneously, that I am actually a good playwright, and that the next time I write a play I will be revealed as someone who is no good at all.

The fact is that people are attracted to new work and by new work.

The whole notion of journalism being an institution whose fundamental purpose is to educate and inform and even, one might say, elevate, has altered under commercial pressure, perhaps, into a different kind of purpose, which is to divert and distract and entertain.

The House of Lords, an illusion to which I have never been able to subscribe - responsibility without power, the prerogative of the eunuch throughout the ages.

I don't act, I don't direct, I don't design.

I've seldom minded other people's opinions, but the other side of that coin is that I've seldom been interested by them, um their opinions about me I mean.

We're actors. We're the opposite of people.

The idea of the state is, or should be, a very limited, prescribed idea. The state looks after the defense of the realm, and other matters - raising revenue to pay for things which are for all of us, and so on. That idea has turned turtle now. The state isn't any longer perceived as an institution which exists to serve us.

I cannot say that I write with any social objective. One writes because one loves writing, really.

When I think of how things could have turned out, I feel as if I've dodged, not just bullets, but 6mm shells.

You can't but know that if you can capture the emotions of the audience as well as their minds, the play will work better, because it's a narrative art form.

We give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain.

I don't keep a diary and I throw away nearly all the paper I might have kept. I don't keep an archive. There's something worrying about my make-up that I try to leave no trace of myself apart from my plays.

If you associate enough with older people who do enjoy their lives, who are not stored away in any golden ghettos, you will gain a sense of continuity and of the possibility for a full life.

Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end?

A healthy attitude is contagious but don't wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier.

Beauty is desired in order that it may be befouled; not for its own sake, but for the joy brought by the certainty of profaning it.

A great production of a black comedy is better than a mediocre production of a comedy of errors.

I'm so grateful to grab hold of something that wants to be a play. It doesn't happen very often. I don't have unwritten plays waiting for their turn.

It is better to be quotable than to be honest.

Maturity is a high price to pay for growing up.

From as long as, literally as far back as I can remember I've liked puns, word jokes, I can literally recall looking at a comic at the age of six or seven and I remember what I enjoyed and what it was precisely and how the joke worked.

I was so thrilled being a reporter, because it gave you the kind of access to people that you wouldn't ever get to meet.

I write for film or, in this case, television when I haven't got a play cooking.

James Joyce - an essentially private man who wished his total indifference to public notice to be universally recognized.

Back in the East you can't do much without the right papers, but with the right papers you can do anything The believe in papers. Papers are power.

I was delighted to not go to university. I couldn't wait to be out of education.

Every exit is an entry somewhere else.

I feel overestimated.