I can’t remember what my first script was.
I’m attracted to the past.
Fatherlessness didn’t strike me as being an event. It was a state of life.
Any revival in which I am involved is liable to change.
A great production of a black comedy is better than a mediocre production of a comedy of errors.
When I think of how things could have turned out, I feel as if I’ve dodged, not just bullets, but 6mm shells.
The media. It sounds like a convention of spiritualists.
I’m offended by things and take pathetic little stands against them.
I’m a conservative kind of person. I don’t think rightwing is quite the same thing. But I acknowledge my conservatism of temperament.
I write for film or, in this case, television when I haven’t got a play cooking.
I like pop music. I consider rock ‘n’ roll to be a branch of pop music.
I don’t think Stoppardian has a precise definition.
I’m so grateful to grab hold of something that wants to be a play. It doesn’t happen very often. I don’t have unwritten plays waiting for their turn.
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.
I’ve got no interest in educating or instructing people.
I’ve seldom minded other people’s opinions, but the other side of that coin is that I’ve seldom been interested by them, um their opinions about me I mean.
I don’t keep a diary and I throw away nearly all the paper I might have kept. I don’t keep an archive. There’s something worrying about my make-up that I try to leave no trace of myself apart from my plays.
For a long time I managed to think two things simultaneously, that I am actually a good playwright, and that the next time I write a play I will be revealed as someone who is no good at all.
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.
You can’t but know that if you can capture the emotions of the audience as well as their minds, the play will work better, because it’s a narrative art form.