Quotes From "The Real Thing" By Tom Stoppard

I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you might nudge the world a little or make a poem that children will speak for you when you are dead. Tom Stoppard

When I was twelve I was obsessed. Everything was sex. Latin was sex. The dictionary fell open at 'meretrix', a harlot. You could feel the mystery coming off the word like musk. 'Meretrix'! This was none of your mensa-a-table, this was a flash from a forbidden planet, and it was everywhere. History was sex, French was sex, art was sex, the Bible, poetry, penfriends, games, music, everything was sex except biology which was obviously sex but not really sex, not the one which was secret and ecstatic and wicked and a sacrament and all the things it was supposed to be but couldn't be at one and the same time - I got that in the boiler room and it turned out to be biology after all. . Tom Stoppard

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

I mean, if Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at twenty-two, the history of music would have been very different. As would the history of aviation, of course. Tom Stoppard

I can never ‘un-love’ you, Marcus. You are mine, all of you. Your faults are now my own, and all of your secrets are now mine to keep. Marina Simcoe

There are no commitments, only bargains. And they have to be made again every day. You think making a commitment is it. Finish. You think it sets like a concrete platform and it'll take any strain you want to put on it. You're committed. You don't have to prove anything. In fact you can afford a little neglect, indulge in a little bit of sarcasm here and there, isolate yourself when you want to. Underneath it's concrete for life. I'm a cow in some ways, but you're an idiot. . Tom Stoppard

I was raised to believe that all I could ever be was a criminal. It made me want to be anything but one. When you know that you can get away with any crime, it becomes a matter of self-respect to commit none. When there is no one to force you to stay within the norms of the society, self-control becomes all that stands between you and the person you want to be. Marina Simcoe

Words.. They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good any more.. I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. 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. Tom Stoppard

With you, I truly am fearless, Marcus. With you, I’m not even afraid to be weak. Marina Simcoe

Reading to me has always been like having a conversation with people who wouldn’t ask me any personal questions. Instead, they open up their own hearts and tell their secrets to me. Marina Simcoe

Marriage is the interview that never ends. J.J. Murray

I believe in mess, tears, pain, self-abasement, loss of self-respect, nakedness. Not caring doesn’t seem much different from not loving. Tom Stoppard