Tom Stoppard/Quotes

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It is better to be quotable than to be honest.

Every exit is an entry somewhere else.

If there is any point in using language at all it is that a word is taken to stand for a particular fact or idea and not for other facts and ideas. —from Travesties

The truth is always a compound of two half-truths, and you never reach it, because there is always something more to say.

Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.

If you took away everything in the world that had to be invented, there'd be nothing left except a lot of people getting rained on.

Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end?

Life is a gamble at terrible odds, if it were a bet, you would not take it.

Words ... are innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, defining that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos... They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you're dead. —from The Real Thing, 1982