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
There are too many things I find it difficult to say 'no' to.
Like almost everything else from the West, the Romantic Revolution arrived late in Russia.
Life is a gamble at terrible odds, if it were a bet, you would not take it
I have a spasm of envy for the person that was killed by a falling bookcase, as long as it doesn't happen prematurely.
I have about a dozen cassettes lying about which I use in random order. Very often, I pick up a cassette to dictate a letter, and I find my voice coming back at me with the lines of plays three years old.
If I see an actor in a role that is really terrifying, no matter how many times I meet him socially, I'm still frightened of him. I think he's going to hit me.
With his earliest work he stood alone in British theatre up against the bewilderment and incomprehension of critics, the audience and writers too.
What Tolstoy is on about is that carnal love is not a good idea.
To be 64 is appalling, so what does it matter being 65?
When Auden said his poetry didn't save one Jew from the gas chamber, he'd said it all.
Why should I write a play? I don't have to write a play, do I? But somehow, I think that's what I'm here for, so I'd better do it.
To be in love with Debo Devonshire is hardly a distinction.
You are the plays you write. How on earth could you write them otherwise? They're projections of your own predilections.
There are many, many more small theater spaces than there were when I was starting out.