Tom Stoppard Quotes (82 Quotes)

The truth is always a compound of two half-truths, and you never reach it, because there is always something more to say.

It is an interesting view of atheism, as a sort of crutch for those who can't stand the reality of God.

If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.

The idea that all the people locked up in mental hospitals are sane while all the people walking about are mad is merely a literary cliche, put about by people who should be locked up. I assure you there is not much in it. Taken as a whole, the sane are out there the sick are in here. For example you are in here because you have delusions that sane people are put in mental hospitals.

It is better to be quotable than to be honest.

We give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain.

Death followed by eternity ... the worst of both worlds. It is a terrible thought.

My whole life is waiting for the questions to which I have prepared answers.

I didn't feel good about cutting out parts of very famous speeches, ... You think you somehow need all of it or you get none of it, but that's not true.

Age is a high price to pay for maturity.

Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them.

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

Life is a gamble at terrible odds, if it were a bet, you would not take it.

It is not hard to understand modern art. If it hangs on a wall it's a painting, and if you can walk around it it's a sculpture.

Back in the East you can't do much without the right papers, but with the right papers you can do anything The believe in papers. Papers are power.

I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

If 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.

Every exit is an entrance somewhere else.

It's wholly deserved and I am completely thrilled. As a writer he has been unswerving for 50 years, ... a most fitting award.

It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting.

Maturity is a high price to pay for growing up.

Beauty is desired in order that it may be befouled; not for its own sake, but for the joy brought by the certainty of profaning it.

As a writer, Harold has been unswerving for 50 years,

the bewilderment and incomprehension of critics and audience.

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

Every exit is an entry somewhere else.

The media. It sounds like a convention of spiritualists.

War is capitalism with the gloves off and many who go to war know it but they go to war because they don't want to be a hero.

A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there.

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

I disagree with everything you say, but I would attack to the death your right to say it.

Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end?