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" I write plays because writing dialogue is the only respectable way of contradicting yourself. I put a position, rebut it, refute the rebuttal, and rebut the refutation. "

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" One of the attractions of translating 'Heroes' is that it's not the kind of play that I write. If it had been, I probably wouldn't have wanted to translate it. There are no one-liners. It's much more a truthful comedy than a play of dazzling wit. "

Tom Stoppard

Play

Kind

" I went to an English school and was brought up in English. So I don't feel Czech. "

" The truth of the matter is that I used to be much more - as it were - shy. Now I don't care! "

" Childhood is Last Chance Gulch for happiness. After that, you know too much. "

" When I was a reporter in Bristol, which I was between the years 1954 and 1960, the newspaper would get tickets for whoever showed up to play a gig at the big hall down the road, so I saw some wonderful people. The Everly Brothers, for example. "

" Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art. "

" When I was younger, I could do something useful just by being free for half a day, but now I need five days to get the world I've left out of my head and ten days or a fortnight not talking to anyone to hold what I need to hold inside my head. "

" My life feels, week to week, incomplete to the level of being pointless if I am not in preparation for the next play or, ideally, into it. "

" Good things, when short, are twice as good. "

" I am good at being shown something and counterpunching. "

Tom Stoppard

Good

Shown

" I'm attracted to the past. "

Tom Stoppard

Past

Attracted

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

" A publisher many years ago asked if I'd like to write a novel for £50. And I said, 'Absolutely.' "

Tom Stoppard

Absolutely

Said

" 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 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 don't even know what my voice is to this day. "

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

" I don't respond well to the Olympic noise, which is the noise of nationalistic triumphalism. "

" From principles is derived probability, but truth or certainty is obtained only from facts. "

" 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 the case, is that you want to write about something you haven't written about, in ways that you haven't done before. "

" I never had any frustration about writing uncredited. I always felt that the satisfaction of doing it was in the doing of it, really, and getting recognised by the small number of people that know what you did. "

" If I hadn't left Czechoslovakia, I would have been dead. "

" 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. "

" When I was 20, the idea of having a play on anywhere was just beyond my dreams. "

" You end up going to school plays quite a bit as a parent, there are a lot of kids who are doing the job as well as they can, but there's always one or two who seem much more at home in the world of impersonation. "

" Life is a gamble, at terrible odds - if it was a bet you wouldn't take it. "

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

" 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. "

" I like trying to create a spark through a collaboration between me and the audience. "

Tom Stoppard

Spark

Trying

" I burn with no causes. "

Tom Stoppard

Causes

Burn