Actors! The mechanics of cheap melodrama! That isn't death! You scream and choke and sink to your knees but it doesn't bring death home to anyone- it doesn't catch them unawares and start the whisper in their skulls that says- 'One day you are going to die.

For all the compasses in the world, there's only one direction, and time is its only measure.

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.

We've traveled too far, and our momentum has taken over; we move idly towards eternity, without possibility of reprieve or hope of explanation.

I don't think Stoppardian has a precise definition.

A man speaking sense to himself is no madder than a man speaking nonsense not to himself.

You're familiar with the tragedies of antiquity, are you? The great homicidal classics?