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" 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. "

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" Theater in New York is nearer to the street. In London, you have to go deep into the building, usually, to reach the place where theater happens. On Broadway, only the fire doors separate you from the sidewalk, and you're lucky if the sound of a police car doesn't rip the envelope twice a night. "

Tom Stoppard

Deep

Night

New York

" I think theater ought to be theatrical. "

" If Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at the age of 22, it would have changed the history of music and of aviation. "

" I'm very garrulous, but I don't say anything. "

" Pink Floyd are one of a handful of bands I've listened to a lot and whose concerts I've been to. I love the experience. I don't dance; I just jig up and down like everybody else. "

Tom Stoppard

Experience

Dance

" Writing a new play shouldn't be seen as a mystery belonging to a priesthood, but as a challenge, a technical challenge, just to get into it. "

" In January 1962, when I was the author of one and a half unperformed plays, I attended a student production of 'The Birthday Party' at the Victoria Rooms in Bristol. Just before it began, I realised that Harold Pinter was sitting in front of me. "

Tom Stoppard

Sitting

Birthday

" Nobody would be killed on the roads if the speed limit were 10 miles an hour. "

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

" 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. "

" To wrap up the idea of 'Parade's End' in a sentence or two, I would say it's a love story in which we see a man with two women, and we know what's attractive about them. And we know why and what they feel about him. "

" Maturity is a high price to pay for growing up. "

" The idea that anybody might be allowed to use their common sense when clearly no harm is being done is part of history now. "

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

" Even when the writing seems very frivolous, I'm puritanical. I don't mean my subject matter. It's that I'm almost pathologically incapable of leaving something when I'm not quite happy with it. "

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

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

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

" My family was in Singapore when the Japanese War started. We were in Singapore at the time of Pearl Harbor, and by the beginning of 1942, the Japanese invasion of Burma and Singapore had started. "

" It takes a lot of effort to be vibrant. "

" If I see an actor in a role that is really terrifying, no matter how many times I meet him socially, I'm still frightened of him. I think he's going to hit me. "

Tom Stoppard

Matter

Meet

" 'The Importance of Being Earnest' is important, but it says nothing about anything. "

" Theatre is a series of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster. "

" Because theatre is a story-telling art form, we feel entitled to assume that the playwright got there before we got there. "

" I am aware, as everybody has to be, that there's more competition for one's attention nowadays. "

Tom Stoppard

Attention

Competition

" I'm vaguely embarrassed by myself sometimes. "

" The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means. "

" A 'human right' is, by definition, timeless. It cannot adhere to some societies and not others, at some times and not at other times. "

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

Tom Stoppard

Absolutely

Said

" I'm a playwright who gets involved in movies when I'm not writing a play. "