Quote

Because children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn't disdain what lives only for a day. It pours the whole of itself into the each moment. We don't value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last.

Tom Stoppard

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Tom Stoppard
Age: 87
Born: 1937
Born: July 3
Dramaturge
Film Director
Journalist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Translator
Writer
Zlin
Sir Tom Stoppard
Nature
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Lilies
Children
Values
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Think
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Lily

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Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light.
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It was a different planet in 1967, the Broadway theatre. It had a little ashtray clamped to the back of every seat and the author got 10% of the gross.
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Chater: You dare to call me that. I demand satisfaction! Septimus: Mrs Chater demanded satisfaction and now you are demanding satisfaction. I cannot spend my time day and night satisfying the demands of the Chater family.
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ROS: Why don't you go and have a look? GUIL: Pragmatism?! - is that all you have to offer?
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Rewriting isn't just about dialogue, it's the order of the scenes, how you finish a scene, how you get into a scene. All these final decisions are best made when you're there, watching. It's really enjoyable, but you've got to be there at the director's invitation. You can't just barge in and say, I'm the writer.
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A great production of a black comedy is better than a mediocre production of a comedy of errors.
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You think human nature is a beast, that it must be put in a cage. But it's the cage that makes the animal bad.
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Real data is messy. ...It's all very noisy out there. Very hard to spot the tune. Like a piano in the next room, it's playing your song, but unfortunately it's out of whack, some of the strings are missing, and the pianist is tone deaf and drunk- I mean, the noise! Impossible!
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You're familiar with the tragedies of antiquity, are you? The great homicidal classics?
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Art cannot be subordinate to its subject, otherwise it is not art but biography.
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One of the nice things about the world of filmmaking is that you make friends in the business.
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I've lost all capacity for disbelief. I'm not sure that I could even rise to a little gentle scepticism.
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