Of all forms of fiction, autobiography is the most gratuitous. Tom Stoppard More Quotes by Tom Stoppard More Quotes From Tom Stoppard Rosencrantz: We might as well be dead. Do you think death could possibly be a boat? Guildenstern: No, no, no... Death is...not. Death isn't. You take my meaning. Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not-be on a boat. Rosencrantz: I've frequently not been on boats. Guildenstern: No, no, no--what you've been is not on boats. Tom Stoppard mightnegativethinking Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one. A moment. In childhood. When it first occurred to you that you don’t go on forever. It must have been shattering, stamped into one’s memory. And yet, I can’t remember it. Tom Stoppard childhoodforevermemories It's silly to be depressed by it. I mean one thinks of it like being alive in a box, one keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead, which should make all the difference, shouldn't it? I mean, you'd never know you were in a box would you?... Even taking into account the fact that you're dead, it isn't a pleasant thought. Especially if you're dead, really. Ask yourself, if I asked you straight off-- I'm going to stuff you in this box now would you rather be alive or dead? Naturally you'd prefer to be alive. Life in a box is better than no life at all. Tom Stoppard sillymeanthinking Chater: You dare to call me that. I demand satisfaction! Septimus: 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. Tom Stoppard demandsatisfactionnight I love love. I love having a lover and being one. The insularity of passion. I love it. I love the way it blurs the distinction between everyone who isn't one's lover. Tom Stoppard passionloversway For all the compasses in the world, there's only one direction, and time is its only measure. Tom Stoppard one-directioncompassworld 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. Tom Stoppard clotheswritinglife The universe is deterministic all right, just like Newton said, I mean it's trying to be, but the only thing going wrong is people fancying people who aren't supposed to be in that part of the plan. Tom Stoppard tryingmeanpeople You think human nature is a beast, that it must be put in a cage. But it's the cage that makes the animal bad. Tom Stoppard cagesanimalthinking People think there's a choice between smoking and immortality, but we've all got to die of something. Tom Stoppard choicespeoplethinking Death followed by eternity the worst of both worlds. It is a terrible thought. Tom Stoppard terribleeternityworld Seduced her? Every time I turned round she was up a library ladder. In the end I gave in. That reminds me—I spotted something between her legs that made me think of you. Tom Stoppard libraryladdersthinking ROS: Why don't you go and have a look? GUIL: Pragmatism?! - is that all you have to offer? Tom Stoppard pragmatismofferslooks Hotel rooms inhabit a separate moral universe. Tom Stoppard hotelmoralrooms 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. Tom Stoppard shininglightreal 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. Tom Stoppard responsibilityplayideas 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. Tom Stoppard numberstwosex 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? Tom Stoppard together-againdoethinking You can't treat royalty like people with normal perverted desires. Tom Stoppard normaldesirepeople It's the wanting to know that makes us matter. Tom Stoppard arcadiamatterknows
