Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" I like dialogue that is slightly more brittle than life. I have always admired and wished to write one of those 1940s film scripts where every line is written with a sharpness and economy that is frankly artificial. "

Related Quotes:

" As a child, I was airlifted out of the path of the Nazis. Unfortunately, I was parachuted into the path of the Japanese, but then I was airlifted again to India. "

Tom Stoppard

Child

Path

Out

" I have a spasm of envy for the person that was killed by a falling bookcase, as long as it doesn't happen prematurely. "

" I'm hopeless at looking into myself and trying to see how things are working and why. "

" I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity. "

" People have quite a simple idea about 'Anna Karenina.' They feel that the novel is entirely about a young married woman who falls in love with a cavalry officer and leaves her husband after much agony, and pays the price for that. "

" The whole excitement for writing anything is quite intense. And for a day or two, you think you've done everything extremely well. The problems start on the third day, and continues for the rest of your life. "

" One of the nice things about the world of filmmaking is that you make friends in the business. Sometimes directors feel a script needs something, but they're not sure what it is, so they show it to a friend; if the friend is a writer, he ends up kicking around with that script for a while. "

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

" I think journalism is important. "

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

" My desk faces the water, and I'm perfectly happy sitting there. I'm never lonely. "

" 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. "

" The days of the digital watch are numbered. "

" It was a different planet in 1967, the Broadway theatre. It had a little ashtray clamped to the back of every seat and the author got 10% of the gross. "

" 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 an attraction about writing about a period that's over and isn't going to change colour while you look at it. "

" I'm not interested in clothes; I just like them. "

Tom Stoppard

Clothes

Not Interested

" It's so great in the theater when everyone catches up on the truth. "

" In the theater there is often a tension, almost a contradiction, between the way real people would think and behave, and a kind of imposed dramaticness. "

" I've got no interest in educating or instructing people. "

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

" In Chekhov, everything blends into its opposite, just fractionally, and this is sort of unsettling. And that's why you end up 100 years later asking, 'Is that moment tragic or comic?' "

" The fact is, I loved being English. I was very happy to be turned into an English schoolboy. "

" The printed word is no longer as in demand as when I was of the age of pupils or even at the age of the teachers teaching them. "

" You should not translate for more than two hours at a time. After that, you lose your edge, the language becomes clumsy, rigid. "

" I'm aware of my old plays and occasionally think about them, but I'm much more anxious about finding the next play. "

Tom Stoppard

Old

Think

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

" It is no light matter to put in jeopardy a single life when it is the very singularity of each life which underpins the idea of a just society. "

" Life in a box is better than no life at all... I expect. "

" I think I give the impression of being a romantic, and I think inside I'm quite severe. But some might say they had the opposite impression of me. "

" I think I enlist comedy to a serious purpose. "