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

Meaning of the quote

In this quote, Tom Stoppard is saying that actors are not like ordinary people. Actors play different roles and pretend to be someone else, while regular people are just themselves. Actors have to learn to think, speak, and act like the characters they are playing, which makes them very different from regular people who don't have to do that. Stoppard is suggesting that the job of an actor is to become the opposite of a normal person.

About Tom Stoppard

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.

More about the author

More quotes from Tom Stoppard

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

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

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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.

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The days of the digital watch are numbered.

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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.

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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.

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Revolution is a trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering.

Tom Stoppard

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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)

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

Tom Stoppard

British playwright (born 1937)

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

Tom Stoppard

British playwright (born 1937)

Maturity is a high price to pay for growing up.

Tom Stoppard

British playwright (born 1937)

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Tom Stoppard

British playwright (born 1937)

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

Tom Stoppard

British playwright (born 1937)

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

Tom Stoppard

British playwright (born 1937)

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

Tom Stoppard

British playwright (born 1937)

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)

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

Tom Stoppard

British playwright (born 1937)

Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them.

Tom Stoppard

British playwright (born 1937)

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

Tom Stoppard

British playwright (born 1937)

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

Tom Stoppard

British playwright (born 1937)

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)

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

Tom Stoppard

British playwright (born 1937)

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)

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

Tom Stoppard

British playwright (born 1937)

Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

Tom Stoppard

British playwright (born 1937)

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

Tom Stoppard

British playwright (born 1937)

Every exit is an entry somewhere else.

Tom Stoppard

British playwright (born 1937)

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)

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

Tom Stoppard

British playwright (born 1937)

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

Tom Stoppard

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