649 Quotes by Tom Stoppard

As Socrates so philosophically put it, since we don't know what death is, it is illogical to fear it.

He could not put down a word without suspecting that it might be the wrong one and that if he held back for another day the intermediate experience would provide the right one. There was no end to that, and Moon fearfully glimpsed himself as a pure writer who after a lifetime of absolutely no output whatsoever, would prepare on his deathbed the single sentence which was the distillation of everything he had saved up, and die before he was able to utter it.

Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

Consistency is all I ask!

In an age when the difference between prince and peasant was thought to be in the stars, Mr Tzara, art was naturally an affirmation for the one and a consolation to the other; but we live in an age when the social order is seen to be the work of material forces and we have been given an entirely new kind of responsibility, the responsibility of changing society.

It's the wanting to know that makes us matter.

Let me get it straight. Your father was king. You were his only son. Your father dies. You are of age. Your uncle becomes king.""Yes.""Unorthodox.

I fell in love with literature and stayed lovesick all my life.

If we can’t arrange our own happiness, it’s a conceit beyond vulgarity to arrange the happiness of those who come after us.