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    • Tom Stoppard

    Wikipedia

    IMDb

    British playwright (born 1937)

    Sir Tom Stoppard is a renowned Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter known for his thought-provoking plays that explore themes of human rights, censorship, and political freedom. Despite fleeing Nazi occupation as a child, Stoppard went on to become one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation, earning numerous awards and honors, including a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II.

    Table of Contents

    Occupation

    director

    dramaturge

    film director

    journalist

    playwright

    screenwriter

    translator

    writer

    About the Tom Stoppard

    Sir Tom Stoppardis a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and political freedom, often delving into the deeper philosophical thematics of society. Stoppard has been a playwright of the National Theatre and is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation. He was knighted for his contribution to theatre by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997.

    Born in Czechoslovakia, Stoppard left as a child refugee, fleeing imminent Nazi occupation. He settled with his family in Britain after the war, in 1946, having spent the previous three yearsin a boarding school in Darjeeling in the Indian Himalayas. After being educated at schools in Nottingham and Yorkshire, Stoppard became a journalist, a drama critic and then, in 1960, a playwright.

    Stoppard’s most prominent plays include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Deadand Leopoldstadt (2020). He wrote the screenplays for Brazil (1985), Empire of the Sun (1987), The Russia House (1990), Billy Bathgate (1991), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Enigma (2001), and Anna Karenina (2012), as well as the HBO limited series Parade’s End (2013). He directed the film Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990), an adaptation of his own 1966 play, with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth as the leads.

    He has received numerous awards and honours including an Academy Award, a Laurence Olivier Award, and five Tony Awards. In 2008, The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 11 in their list of the “100 most powerful people in British culture”. It was announced in June 2019 that Stoppard had written a new play, Leopoldstadt, set in the Jewish community of early 20th-century Vienna. The play premiered in January 2020 at Wyndham’s Theatre. The play went on to win the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and later the 2022 Tony Award for Best Play.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Tom Stoppard is a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter known for his prominent plays and contributions to theatre, film, radio, and television.

    Some of Tom Stoppard’s most prominent plays include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Jumpers, Travesties, Night and Day, The Real Thing, Arcadia, The Invention of Love, The Coast of Utopia, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and Leopoldstadt.

    Tom Stoppard was knighted for his contribution to theatre by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997.

    Tom Stoppard’s work often covers themes of human rights, censorship, and political freedom, delving into the deeper philosophical thematics of society.

    Tom Stoppard was born in Czechoslovakia and left as a child refugee, fleeing the imminent Nazi occupation. He settled with his family in Britain after the war, in 1946, having spent the previous three years (1943–1946) in a boarding school in Darjeeling, India.

    Tom Stoppard has received numerous awards and honours, including an Academy Award, a Laurence Olivier Award, and five Tony Awards. In 2008, The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 11 in their list of the ‘100 most powerful people in British culture’.

    Tom Stoppard’s new play, Leopoldstadt, set in the Jewish community of early 20th-century Vienna, premiered in January 2020 at Wyndham’s Theatre. The play went on to win the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and later the 2022 Tony Award for Best Play.

    34 Quotes by Tom Stoppard

    1. 1.

      The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    2. 2.

      It is better to be quotable than to be honest.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    3. 3.

      Good things, when short, are twice as good.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    4. 4.

      It is better of course to know useless things than to know nothing.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    5. 5.

      James Joyce – an essentially private man who wished his total indifference to public notice to be universally recognized.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    6. 6.

      I still believe that if your aim is to change the world, journalism is a more immediate short-term weapon.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    7. 7.

      Back in the East you can’t do much without the right papers, but with the right papers you can do anything The believe in papers. Papers are power.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    8. 8.

      The days of the digital watch are numbered.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    9. 9.

      If you associate enough with older people who do enjoy their lives, who are not stored away in any golden ghettos, you will gain a sense of continuity and of the possibility for a full life.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    10. 10.

      My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful; but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    11. 11.

      Revolution is a trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    12. 12.

      The House of Lords, an illusion to which I have never been able to subscribe – responsibility without power, the prerogative of the eunuch throughout the ages.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    13. 13.

      We give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    14. 14.

      Life in a box is better than no life at all… I expect.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    15. 15.

      Maturity is a high price to pay for growing up.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    16. 16.

      The media. It sounds like a convention of spiritualists.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    17. 17.

      Get me inside any boardroom and I’ll get any decision I want.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    18. 18.

      I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    19. 19.

      If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    20. 20.

      It is not hard to understand modern art. If it hangs on a wall it’s a painting, and if you can walk around it it’s a sculpture.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    21. 21.

      We’re actors. We’re the opposite of people.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    22. 22.

      Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    23. 23.

      My whole life is waiting for the questions to which I have prepared answers.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    24. 24.

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

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    25. 25.

      A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar – you pretend it’s not there.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    26. 26.

      A healthy attitude is contagious but don’t wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    27. 27.

      Beauty is desired in order that it may be befouled; not for its own sake, but for the joy brought by the certainty of profaning it.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    28. 28.

      It’s better to be quotable than to be honest.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    29. 29.

      Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    30. 30.

      Life is a gamble, at terrible odds – if it was a bet you wouldn’t take it.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    31. 31.

      Every exit is an entry somewhere else.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    32. 32.

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

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    33. 33.

      It’s not the voting that’s democracy; it’s the counting.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)

    34. 34.

      From principles is derived probability, but truth or certainty is obtained only from facts.

      Tom Stoppard

      British playwright (born 1937)