Quotes by Tom Stoppard

“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 ...”

“Like almost everything else from the West, the Romantic Revolution arrived late in Russia.”

“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.”

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

“Chekhov was capable of casually tossing off deplorable comments in his letters, combined with a very modern anger against anti-Semitism.”

“I still believe that if your aim is to change the world, journalism is a more immediate short-term weapon.”

“What is the society we wish to protect? Is it the society of complete surveillance for the commonwealth? Is this the wealth we seek to have in common - optimal security at the cost of maximal surve...”

“That I have the right to express myself freely at all times in all circumstances entails the idea that free speech is a 'basic human right' possessed by each individual, and, as such, trumps the in...”

“WILDE: Oh Bosie! (He weeps.) I have to go back to him, you know. Robbie will be furious but it can't be helped. The betrayal of one's friends is a bagatelle in the stakes of love, but the betrayal...”

“GUIL (quietly): Where we went wrong was getting on a boat. We can move, of course, change direction, rattle about, but our movement is contained within a larger one that carries us along as inexora...”

“Free to move, speak,extemporize, and yet. We have not been cut loose. Our truancy is defined by one fixed star,and our drift represents merely a slight change of angle to it: we may seize the momen...”

“Kissing girls is not like science, nor is it like sport. It is the third thing when you thought there were only two.”

“Wheels have been set in motion, and they have their own pace, to which we are...condemned. Each move is dictated by the previous one - that is the meaning of order. If we start being arbitrary it'l...”

“I believe in mess, tears, pain, self-abasement, loss of self-respect, nakedness. Not caring doesnt seem much different from not loving.”

“THOMASINA:But then the Egyptian noodle made carnal embrace with the enemy who burned the great library of Alexandria without so much as a fine for all that is overdue!”

“Age is a high price to pay for maturity.”

“It's better to be quotable than to be honest.”

“Everything has to be taken on trust truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is h...”

“We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on...”

“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...”