Search quotes

1 2 3 4 5 ▲ ▼

Link	Quote	Stars	Tags	Author
9ba6f8a	HANNAH: Don't let Bernard get to you. It's only performance art, you know. Rhetoric, they used to teach it in ancient times, like PT. It's not about being right, they had philosophy for that. Rhetoric was their chat show. Bernard's indignation is a sort of aerobics for when he gets on television.			Tom Stoppard
fa520b7	People do terrible things to each other, but it's worse in the places where everybody is kept in the dark.			Tom Stoppard
f922dbe	Gallons of ink and miles of typewriter ribbon expended on the misery of the unrequited lover; not a word about the utter tedium of the unrequiting.			Tom Stoppard
b038671	The media. It sounds like a convention of spiritualists.			Tom Stoppard
8529337	Well, he us a nab, he is mortal, death comes to us all, etcetera, and consequently he would have died anyways, sooner or later. Or to look at it from the social point of view - he's just one man among many, the loss would be well within reason and convenience.			Tom Stoppard
4e2d456	WILDE: Oh -- Bosie! (He weeps.) I have to go back to him, you know. Robbie will be furious but it can't be helped. The betrayal of one's friends is a bagatelle in the stakes of love, but the betrayal of oneself is a lifelong regret. Bosie is what became of me. He is spoiled, vindictive, utterly selfish and not very talented, but these are merely the facts. The truth is he was Hyacinth when Apollo loved him, he is ivory and gold, from his re..		writing love robbie-ross victorians oscar-wilde classics	Tom Stoppard
7c09050	I learned three things in Zurich during the war. I wrote them down. Firstly, you're either a revolutionary or you're not, and if you're not you might as well be an artist as anything else. Secondly, if you can't be an artist, you might as well be a revolutionary... I forget the third thing.			Tom Stoppard
38a5dad	It's all trivial-your grouse, my hermit, Bernard's Byron. Comparing what we're looking for misses the point. It's wanting to know that makes us matter. Otherwise we're going out the way we came in. That's why you can't believe in the afterlife, Valentine. Believe in the after but not the life. Believe in god, the solid, the spirit, the infinite, believe in angels if you like, but not in the great celestial get-together for an exchange of vi..			Tom Stoppard
f2143e7	In an age when the difference between prince and peasant was thought to be in the stars, Mr Tzara, art was naturally an affirmation for the one and a consolation to the other; but we live in an age when the social order is seen to be the work of material forces and we have been given an entirely new kind of responsibility, the responsibility of changing society.			Tom Stoppard
fcf51cc	Otpravliaisia k nei. Ona tebe iavno dorozhe nas, raz ona tebia tak khorosho ponimaet. To est' v tselom vy ne soglasny s eio analizom? V tselom ona mozhet poiti i povesit'sia.			Tom Stoppard
593bb10	I got dizzy," he explained. I should think you did. What were you doing?' Nothing," said Moon. "I was trying to face one way or the other and I got confused and fell over." Let that be my epitaph." --			Tom Stoppard
2a74b3c	War is capitalism with the gloves off			Tom Stoppard
b10fa4f	Belinsky: 'Who is this Moloch that eats his children?' Herzen: 'It's the Ginger Cat.			Tom Stoppard
26a651c	Bernard: ... By the way, Valentina, do you want credit? - 'the game book recently discovered by.'? Valentine: It was never lost, Bernard. Bernard: 'As recently pointed out by.' I don't normally like giving credit where it's due, but with scholarly articles as with divorce, there is a certain cachet in citing a member of the aristocracy. I'll pop it in ad lib for the lecture, and give you a mention in the press release. How's that? Valentine..		humor citation-protocol	Tom Stoppard
14ce203	A lesson in folly is worth two in wisdom.		wisdom proverbs wisdom-quotes	Tom Stoppard
3b5862b	Christopher:] You cannot conceive of the quantity of explosives the armies throw at each other for each man killed! The shells make a continuous noise, sometimes like an enormous machine breaking apart. At other times, they come whistling towards you in a thoughtful sort of way and then go crump and the screw cap flies off, hurtling through the air, screaming. There's a kind of shell which comes with a crescendo like an express train, only ..			Tom Stoppard
a52ba33	I have three copies of the first edition, which sold in double figures, speaking loosely; there was a moment when Blond's 'Lord Malquist and Mr Moon' sold 67 copies, or some such number, in Venezuela - a mystery I never solved. I have never been to Venezuela. I remember going into Foyles' bookshop in 1966 and being gratified to see a stack of Malquist-and-Moons on the New Fiction table. I counted them; there were twelve. A week or two later..			Tom Stoppard
f25460d	The Plastic People of the Universe played 'Venus in Furs' from Velvet Underground, and I knew everything was basically okay.			Tom Stoppard
0613fd7	They had it in for us, didn't they? Right from the beginning. Who'd have thought that we were so important?			Tom Stoppard
dc5c950	Guildenstern: What's the first thing you remember? Rosencrantz: [thinks] No, it's no good. It was a long time ago. Guildenstern: No, you don't take my meaning. What's the first thing you remember after all the things you've forgotten? Rosencrantz: Oh, I see... I've forgotten the question.			Tom Stoppard
58fe886	Septimus: There is nothing more to be said about sexual congress.		love	Tom Stoppard
e9056ef	Thomasina: Septimus, what is carnal embrace? Septimus: Carnal embrace is the practice of throwing one's arms around a side of beef.			Tom Stoppard
74aa7ac	We shed as we pick up, like travelers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those left behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it. -			Tom Stoppard
47efd54	Don't clap too loudly--it's a very old world.		wolrd fragile old	Tom Stoppard
6f6298a	Bog, v ponimanii Shellinga, -- eto kosmos, edinstvo prirody, kotoroe probivaetsia k soznaniiu, i chelovek -- pervaia pobeda na etom puti, zhivotnye dyshat emu v zatylok, ovoshchi neskol'ko otstaiut, a kamniam poka eshchio nechem pokhvastat'sia.			Tom Stoppard
0453af9	Ia khotela koe-chto sprosit' u vas, no vy mozhete rasserdit'sia. Tem ne menee ia vam otvechu. Net. No vy zhe ne znaete, chto ia sobiralas' sprosit'? Ne znaiu. No teper' vy mozhete podognat' svoi vopros k moemu otvetu.			Tom Stoppard
f88b974	Imagination without skill gives us contemporary art.		artists imagination contemporary-art	Tom Stoppard
087b8a5	My dear Tristan, to be an artist at all is like living in Switzerland during a world war. To be an artist in Zurich, in 1917, implies a degree of self-absorption that would have glazed over the eyes of Narcissus.		war switzerland artist	Tom Stoppard
7a2f97a	So it is with us all, we're not so one-or-the-other. The one who puts on the clothes in the morning is the working majority, but at night-perhaps in the moment before unconsciousness- we meet our sleeper- the priest is visited by the doubter, the Marxist sees the civilizing force of the bourgeoisie, the captain of the industry admits the justice of common ownership.			Tom Stoppard
4663484	Do not despair--many are happy much of the time; more eat than starve, more are healthy than sick, more curable than dying; not so many dying as dead; and one of the thieves was saved. Hell's bells and all's well--half the world is at peace with itself, and so is the other half; vast areas are unpolluted; millions of children grow up without suffering deprivation, and millions, while deprived, grow up without suffering cruelties, and millio..			Tom Stoppard
f7415db	Sometimes I dream of revolution, a bloody coup d'etat by the second rank--troupes of actors slaughtered by their understudies, magicians sawn in half by indefatigably smiling glamour girls, cricket teams wiped out by marauding bands of twelfth men--I dream of champions chopped down by rabbit-punching sparring partners while eternal bridesmaids turn and rape the bridegrooms over the sausage rolls and parliamentary private secretaries plant b..			Tom Stoppard
b761307	Hawkers are crying their wares, tract-sellers, delivery boys, and merchants go about their business.			Marc Norman/Tom Stoppard
d7a4856	STANKEVICH The world outside of me has no meaning independent of my thinking it. (pauses to look) I look out of the window. A garden. Trees. Grass. A young woman in a chair reading a book. I think: chair. So she is sitting. I think: book. So she is reading. Now the young woman touches her hair where it's come undone. But how can we be sure there is a world of phenomena, a woman reading in a garden? Perhaps the only thing that's real is my s..			Tom Stoppard
7c24ec1	STANKEVICH The world outside of me has no meaning independent of my thinking it. (pauses to look) I look out of the window. A garden. Trees. Grass. A young woman in a chair reading a book. I think: chair. So she is sitting. I think: book. So she is reading. Now the young woman touches her hair where it's come undone. But how can we be sure there is a world of phenomena, a woman reading in a garden? Perhaps the only thing that's real is my s..			Tom Stoppard
6872cc5	This is not a drill.			Tom Stoppard
12f6bbb	Being a person is respect, because you're not a cat or a dog or a bunch of tulips, you're a human person and humanness isn't like something there can be different amounts of, it's maxed out from the start, total respect every time - kill one, kill a trainload, you're dissing the transcendental is all.			Tom Stoppard
e90cc77	GULL (musing) : The law of probability, it has been oddly asserted, is something to do with the proposition that if six monkeys (he has surprised himself) ... if six monkeys were .. . ROS: Game? GULL: Were they? ROS: Are you? GULL (understanding): Game. (Flips a coin.) The law of averages, if I have got this right, means that if six monkeys were thrown up in the air for long enough they would land on their tails about as often as they would..			Tom Stoppard
1fc80bd	Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light. Dante reserved a place in his Inferno for those who wilfully live in sadness - sullen in the sweet air, he says. Your 'honour' is all shame and timidity and compliance. Pure of stain! But the artist is the secret criminal in our midst. He is the agent of progress against authority. you are right to be a scholar. A scholar is all scruple, an artist is none. The artist must lie, cheat, decei..		courage life love	Tom Stoppard
8d0def9	By why, Ligurinus, alas why this unaccustomed tear trickling down my cheek? - why does my glib tongue stumble to silence as I speak? At night I hold you fast in my dreams, I run after you across the Field of Mars, I follow you into the tumbling waters, and you show no pity.			Tom Stoppard
11575f8	Even a single coin has music in it, should it be gold. - the player			Tom Stoppard
b571d45	Moon felt as if the conversation was a weight he had to drag along on the end of a rope.			Tom Stoppard
f1684c6	Free to move, speak, extemporize, and yet. We have not been cut loose. Our truancy is defined by one fixed star, and our drift represents merely a slight change of angle to it: we may seize the moment, toss it around while the moments pass, a short dash here, an exploration there, but we are brought round full circle to face again the single immutable fact --		truancy existential	Tom Stoppard
3aab5e9	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, The Dog It Was That Died, In the Native State (Sony Award).			Tom Stoppard
313b994	Tom Stoppard's other work includes: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Jumpers, Travesties, Night and Day, After Magritte, The Real Thing, Enter A Free Man, Hapgood, Arcadia, Indian Ink (a stage adaptation of his own play, In the Native State) and The Invention of Love. Arcadia			Tom Stoppard

1 2 3 4 5 ▲ ▼