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.
Tom StoppardIf the audience is made to do not enough work, they resent it without knowing it. Too much and they get lost. There's a perfect pace to be found. And a perfect place that is different for every line of the play.
Tom StoppardActors! 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.
Tom StoppardI write scenes - often quite long scenes - mainly because I still get seduced into writing six lines where one and a half will do.
Tom StoppardIt's silly to be depressed by it. I mean one thinks of it like being alive in a box, one keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead, which should make all the difference, shouldn't it? I mean, you'd never know you were in a box would you?... Even taking into account the fact that you're dead, it isn't a pleasant thought. Especially if you're dead, really. Ask yourself, if I asked you straight off-- I'm going to stuff you in this box now would you rather be alive or dead? Naturally you'd prefer to be alive. Life in a box is better than no life at all.
Tom StoppardThe 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.
Tom StoppardYou are an over-excited little man, with a need for self-expression far beyond the scope of your natural gifts. This is not discreditable. Neither does it make you an artist.
Tom StoppardYou're familiar with the tragedies of antiquity, are you? The great homicidal classics?
Tom StoppardROS: Why don't you go and have a look? GUIL: Pragmatism?! - is that all you have to offer?
Tom StoppardWe're better at predicting events at the edge of the galaxy or inside the nucleus of an atom than whether it'll rain on auntie's garden party three Sundays from now.
Tom StoppardThe House of Lords, an illusion to which I have never been able to subscribe - responsibility without power, the prerogative of the eunuch throughout the ages.
Tom StoppardRosencrantz: I don't believe in it anyway. Guildenstern: What? Rosencrantz: England. Guildenstern: Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then?
Tom StoppardThe ordinary-sized stuff which is our lives, the things people write poetry about—clouds—daffodils—waterfalls—what happens in a cup of coffee when the cream goes in—these things are full of mystery, as mysterious to us as the heavens were to the Greeks.
Tom StoppardI don't really have a system or set of principles. It's kind of common sense mixed up with instinct.
Tom StoppardI think theater ought to be theatrical ... you know, shuffling the pack in different ways so that it's -- there's always some kind of ambush involved in the experience. You're being ambushed by an unexpected word, or by an elephant falling out of the cupboard, whatever it is.
Tom StoppardIf you could stop every atom in its position and direction, and if your mind could comprehend all the actions thus suspended, then if you were really, really good at algebra you could write the formula for all the future; and although nobody can be so clever as to do it, the formula must exist just as if one could.
Tom StoppardAn artist is the magician put among men to gratify - capriciously - their urge for immortality.
Tom StoppardA genuine love of learning is one of the two delinquencies which cause blindness and lead a young man to ruin.
Tom StoppardIf you took away everything in the world that had to be invented, there'd be nothing left except a lot of people getting rained on.
Tom StoppardWords are sacred. If you get the right ones in the right order you can nudge the world a little.
Tom StoppardWars are fought for oil wells and coaling stations; for control of the Dardanelles or the Suez Canal; for colonial pickings to buy cheap in and conquered markets to sell dear in. War is capitalism with the gloves off.
Tom StoppardIt's where we're nearest to our humanness. Useless knowledge for its own sake. Useful knowledge is good, too, but it's for the faint-hearted, an elaboration of the real thing, which is only to shine some light, it doesn't matter where on what, it's the light itself, against the darkness, it's what's left of God's purpose when you take away God.
Tom StoppardNormally, even if you're on the set for 12 hours, there may be only a moment or two when you are actually useful.
Tom StoppardUnderneath runs the main current of preoccupation, which is keeping one's nose clean at all times. This means that when things go wrong you have to pass the blame along the line, like pass-the-parcel, till the music stops.
Tom StoppardA man speaking sense to himself is no madder than a man speaking nonsense not to himself.
Tom StoppardThere must have been a moment, at the beginning, were we could have said -- no. But somehow we missed it.
Tom StoppardI don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you might nudge the world a little or make a poem that children will speak for you when you are dead.
Tom Stoppard