Quotes About Tom Stoppard

I write scenes - often quite long scenes - mainly because I still get seduced into writing six lines where one and a half will do.

I seem to be failing in my intention to be as boring as I possibly can be for self-protection.

For me, the reputation for teaching language in general, and East European languages most particularly, gave Glasgow University, and by reflection the country, a distinction.

One of the attractions of translating 'Heroes' is that it's not the kind of play that I write. If it had been, I probably wouldn't have wanted to translate it. There are no one-liners. It's much more a truthful comedy than a play of dazzling wit.

A 'human right' is, by definition, timeless. It cannot adhere to some societies and not others, at some times and not at other times.

There were authors I read as an adult who completely inspired me. But when I was a teenager, I got to hang out with Tom Stoppard for a bit. My mum was his wife's secretary. He was obviously super smart, but he was also approachable and normal. I think he was the first person I'd ever met who I'd thought, 'Oh, I see. There's a living in this.'

You don't often get a proposal to do Tolstoy for a really interesting director - that's easy to say yes to.

Chekhov was capable of casually tossing off deplorable comments in his letters, combined with a very modern anger against anti-Semitism.

GUIL: A scientific approach to the examination of phenomena is a defence against the pure emotion of fear

Do not dabble in paradox, Edward, it puts you in danger of fortuitous wit.

Mrs Chater demanded satisfaction and now you are demanding satisfaction. I cannot spend my time day and night satisfying the demands of the Chater family.

Noakes (bleating) Lord Little has one very similar – Lady Croom I cannot relieve Lord Little's misfortunes by adding to my own. Pray, what is this rustic hovel that presumes to superpose itself on my gazebo?

His radio plays include: If You're Glad I'll Be Frank, Albert's Bridge (Italia Prize), Where Are They Now?, Artist Descending A Staircase, The Dog It Was That Died, In the Native State (Sony Award).

I like pop music. I consider rock 'n' roll to be a branch of pop music.

Even when the writing seems very frivolous, I'm puritanical. I don't mean my subject matter. It's that I'm almost pathologically incapable of leaving something when I'm not quite happy with it.

GUIL: A scientific approach to the examination of phenomena is a defence against the pure emotion of fear