Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" The whole philosophy of modern times is to dissolve distinctions between individuals and deal with them as large collections of people. It's essentially self-interested on the part of authority. "

Tom Stoppard

Authority

Philosophy

Modern

Related Quotes:

" Revolution is a trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering. "

" As a playwright, you can cover a lot of waterfront without being able to hold your own against an expert in any of those areas. I have no illusions about that. "

" When Auden said his poetry didn't save one Jew from the gas chamber, he'd said it all. "

" When I was in my teens, I was very, very keen on being the author of a book. What the book was was secondary. I wanted it to be in hardback. I didn't care how thick or thin it was, and I didn't actually care what it was about. "

" You do know what's coming up when you're translating. I suppose the concentration, then, is on finding a formulation which is speakable and in character - and economical as well, actually. "

" I'm not that taken with Freudian perspectives. They seem to be overcomplicated. "

" I think... the history of civilization is an attempt to codify, classify and categorize aspects of human nature that hardly lend themselves to that process. "

" Everybody I know is writing plays twice a year. It's sort of making me feel I am not up to much. "

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

Tom Stoppard

Attention

Competition

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

Tom Stoppard

Spark

Trying

" When 'The Dark Side of the Moon' was a new album in 1973, a friend of mine walked into my room where I was working with a copy in his hand and said, 'You really have to do a play about this album.' "

" 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. "

" There are certain sorts of jokes which have only to do with the substitution of the unexpected word in a familiar context. If you translated something into French and then had it translated back into English by somebody who didn't know the original, you'd lose what was funny. "

" 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. "

Tom Stoppard

Always

Economy

" Time is short, life is short, there's a lot to know. So I skip the entertainers in the newspaper now. I just haven't got time. "

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

" You don't often get a proposal to do Tolstoy for a really interesting director - that's easy to say yes to. "

" If I had been asked to write 1,200 words for a newspaper tomorrow, on any subject, I would just do it rather than leave a white hole in the page. And I think it's a very healthy attitude to take to writing anything. "

" I don't draw on my inner life in my work. "

" Theater is still a medium which attracts young writers. You'd think that it would be all over by now, with television and film. But it's not. "

" Like many people, I only knew of Ford Madox Ford through a book called 'The Good Soldier,' which is everybody's favorite Ford Madox Ford if they have one, but I came to read 'Parade's End' when it was suggested via Damien Timmer of Mammoth Screen. "

Tom Stoppard

Good

Soldier

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

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

Tom Stoppard

Clothes

Not Interested

" There are many, many more small theater spaces than there were when I was starting out. "

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

" I feel overestimated. "

" I always loved rock 'n' roll. "

" The thing about talking about human rights is that when one bears in mind the sharp end of it, one does not want to worry too much about semantics. "

" Any revival in which I am involved is liable to change. "

" I flinch when I see my name in the newspapers. "