Tom Stoppard Quotes


"James Joyce - an essentially private man who wished his total indifference to public notice to be universally recognized."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Indifference, Man, Public)

"Life in a box is better than no life at all... I expect."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Life)

"Life is a gamble, at terrible odds - if it was a bet you wouldn't take it."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Life)

"Maturity is a high price to pay for growing up."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Growing up, Maturity)

"My whole life is waiting for the questions to which I have prepared answers."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Life, Answers, Questions, Waiting)

"My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful; but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Work)

"Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them."
- Tom Stoppard
"Revolution is a trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Revolution, Suffering)

"The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: End, Tragedy)

"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."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Power, Illusion, Responsibility)

"The media. It sounds like a convention of spiritualists."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Media)

"We give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Advice)

"We're actors. We're the opposite of people."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: People, Actors)

"It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Democracy, Voting)

"A healthy attitude is contagious but don't wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Attitude)

"Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Art, Imagination, Skill)

"Every exit is an entry somewhere else."
- Tom Stoppard
"It's better to be quotable than to be honest."
- Tom Stoppard
"A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there."
- Tom Stoppard
"Age is a very high price to pay for maturity."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Age, Maturity)

"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."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Power, Right)

"Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end?"
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Thought, End, Eternity)

"From principles is derived probability, but truth or certainty is obtained only from facts."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Truth, Certainty, Facts, Principles)

"Get me inside any boardroom and I'll get any decision I want."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Decision, Want)

"It is better of course to know useless things than to know nothing."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Nothing)

"It is not hard to understand modern art. If it hangs on a wall it's a painting, and if you can walk around it it's a sculpture."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Art, Painting, Sculpture)

"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."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Beauty, Certainty, Joy, May, Order)

"It is better to be quotable than to be honest."
- Tom Stoppard
"Good things, when short, are twice as good."
- Tom Stoppard
"If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Childhood)

"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."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Life, People, Possibility, Gain, Sense, Will)

"I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Age, Maturity)

"I still believe that if your aim is to change the world, journalism is a more immediate short-term weapon."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Change, Journalism, World)