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Tom Stoppard

Tom Stoppard Quotes

Playwright

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Famous Tom Stoppard Quotes

“There we were - demented children mincing about in clothes that no one ever wore, speaking as no man ever spoke, swearing love in wigs and rhymed couplets, killing each other with wooden swords, hollow protestations of faith hurled after empty promises of vengeance - and every gesture, every pose, vanishing into the thin unpopulated air. We ransomed our dignity to the clouds, and the uncomprehending birds listened. Don't you see?! We're actors - we're the opposite of people!”

PeopleMenChildrenActorsActingAirPromiseClothesBirdDignityEmptyOppositesKillingCloudsSpokesGesturesVengeanceHollowWigsSwearingVanishingDementedKilling Each OtherRosencrantz And GuildensternCoupletsEmpty Promises
Book:Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
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“If knowledge isn't self-knowledge it isn't doing much, mate. Is the universe expanding? Is it contracting? Is it standing on one leg and singing 'When Father Painted the Parlour'? Leave me out. I can expand my universe without you. 'She walks into beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies, and all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes.”

IfsI CanSelfEyeNightUniverseFatherDarkWalksSkySingingAspectStandingLegsMatesSelf KnowledgeHer EyesExpandingLeaving MeWithout YouContractingStarry Sky
Book:Tom Stoppard: Plays
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“Real data is messy. ...It's all very noisy out there. Very hard to spot the tune. Like a piano in the next room, it's playing your song, but unfortunately it's out of whack, some of the strings are missing, and the pianist is tone deaf and drunk- I mean, the noise! Impossible!”

MeanRealHardSongNextRoomsImpossibleMissingNoiseDrunkSpotsDataPianoToneTunesStringsDeafMessyNoisyPianist
Book:Tom Stoppard Plays 5: The Real Thing; Night & Day; Hapgood; Indian Ink; Arcadia
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“Give us this day our daily mask.”

GivingChristPrayerPrayingBibleMaskThis DayOur PrayersPraying To GodSpoonsPastaAnswers To PrayerAnswered PrayersFather In HeavenChristian PrayerDebtorsBread And ButterSupplicationDaily BreadEternal HappinessSermon On The MountBest PrayerCatechismSaying A PrayerRosencrantz And GuildensternFriends ThanksgivingI Pray To GodHoly RosaryKingdom ComeBread Of LifePraying The RosaryUnanswered PrayersFervent PrayerOur Daily BreadEating BreadPrevailing PrayerGod Answers PrayersOrthodox ChurchFaith PrayersTransubstantiationPrayer Works
Book:Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
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“When people discuss his plays, he says that he feels like he's standing at customs watching an official ransack his luggage. He cheerfully declares responsibility for a play about two people, and suddenly the officer is finding all manner of exotic contraband like the nature of God and identity, and while he can't deny that they're there, he can't for the life of him remember putting them there. In the end, a play is not the product of an idea; an idea is the product of a play.”

PeopleFeelsTwoIdeasEndsPlayRememberResponsibilityIdentityProductsFindingsStandingDenyOfficialsCustomsOfficersExoticLuggage
Author:Tom Stoppard
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“Carnal embrace is sexual congress, which is the insertion of the male genital organ into the female genital organ for purposes of procreation and pleasure. Fermat’s last theorem, by contrast, asserts that when x, y and z are whole numbers each raised to power of n, the sum of the first two can never equal the third when n is greater than 2.”

FirstsTwoWholeLastsPurposeSexPleasureNumbersGreaterEqualFemaleThirdsEmbraceRaisedMalesCongressContrastOrgansTheoremsProcreation
Book:Arcadia
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“When you stir your rice pudding, Septimus, the spoonful of jam spreads itself round making red trails like the picture of a meteor in my astronomical atlas. But if you stir backwards, the jam will not come together again. Indeed, the pudding does not notice and continues to turn pink just as before. Do you think this is odd?”

IfsThinkingDoeTogetherTurnsRedRoundsSpreadOddBackwardsTrailsRiceJamPuddingTogether AgainAtlasMeteorsArcadiaRice Pudding
Book:Arcadia
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“It'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.”

RealMatterLightPurposeLeftDarknessShiningSakeUselessHeartedReal ThingsHumannessUseful KnowledgeFaint HeartedUseless Knowledge
Book:The Invention of Love
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“Comparing what we're looking for misses the point. It's wanting to know that makes us matter. Otherwise we're going out the way we came in. That's why you can't believe in the afterlife, Valentine. Believe in the after, by all means, but not the life. Believe in God, the soul, the spirit, the infinite, believe in angels if you like, but not in the great celestial get-together for an exchange of views. If the answers are in the back of the book I can wait, but what a drag. Better to struggle on knowing that failure is final.”

IfsKnowsWayBelieveMeanI CanBookSoulMatterTogetherSpiritWaitingAnswersViewsStruggleKnowingMissingAngelInfiniteFinalsCompareBelieve In GodAfterlifeDragGoing OutValentineCelestialGet TogetherArcadia
Book:Arcadia
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“The trouble is, I can't find a part of myself where you're not important. I write in order to be worth your while and to finance the way I want to live with you. Not the way you want to live. The way I want to live with you. Without you I wouldn't care. I'd eat tinned spaghetti and put on yesterday's clothes. But as it is I change my socks, and make money, and tart up Brodie's unspeakable drivel into speakable drivel so he can be an author too, like me.”

WayWantLifeWritingI CanImportantCareOrderTroubleClothesYesterdayLike MeFinanceMaking MoneyWithout YouSockUnspeakableSpaghettiTartsDrivel
Author:Tom Stoppard
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