Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM CBE FRSLis a British playwright and screenwriter, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. He co-wrote the screenplays for Brazil, The Russia House, and Shakespeare in Love, and has received one Academy Award and four Tony Awards. Themes of human rights, censorship and...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth3 July 1937
CityZlin, Czech Republic
To say that it is without pace, point, focus, interest, drama, wit or originality is to say simply that it does not happen to be my cup of tea.
Underneath 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.
The truth is always a compound of two half- truths, and you never reach it, because there is always something more to say.
It takes a lot of effort to be vibrant.
I doubt that art needed Ruskin any more than a moving train needs one of its passengers to shove it.
In January 1962, when I was the author of one and a half unperformed plays, I attended a student production of 'The Birthday Party' at the Victoria Rooms in Bristol. Just before it began, I realised that Harold Pinter was sitting in front of me.
I can put two and two together, you know. Do not think you are dealing with a man who has lost his grapes.
I read for interest and enjoyment, and when I cease to enjoy it I stop.
There is truth and falsehood in a comma.
Personally I am in favour of education but a university is not the place for it.
Death is the ultimate negative.
Uncertainty is the normal state.
We drift down time, clutching at straws. But what good's a brick to a drowning man?
He says his aim is poetry. One does not aim at poetry with pistols. At poets, perhaps.