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Tom Stoppard Quotes about Children

All Tom Stoppard Quotes Age Art Capitalism Childhood Children quotes Dialogue Eternity Film Giving Growing Up History Inspirational Journalism Life Philosophy Reality Responsibility Science Theatre Tragedy Truth Waiting War Writing
If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.

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

Tom Stoppard
Life, Children, Creativity

Because children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's purpose is to be a child

Tom Stoppard
Children, Growing Up, Thinking
Tom Stoppard (2014). “Shipwreck: The Coast of Utopia Play 2”, p.83, Faber & Faber

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
Children, Thinking, Order
Tom Stoppard (1999). “Arcadia”

There we were - demented children mincing about in clothes that no one ever wore, speaking as no man ever spoke, swearing love in wigs and rhymed couplets, killing each other with wooden swords, hollow protestations of faith hurled after empty promises of vengeance - and every gesture, every pose, vanishing into the thin unpopulated air. We ransomed our dignity to the clouds, and the uncomprehending birds listened. Don't you see?! We're actors - we're the opposite of people!

Tom Stoppard
Children, Men, Clouds
Tom Stoppard (2007). “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”, p.63, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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
Children, Writing, Thinking
Tom Stoppard (1999). “Arcadia”

Obviously, you would give your life for your children, or give them the last biscuit on the plate. But to me, the trick in life is to take that sense of generosity between kin, make it apply to the extended family and to your neighbour, your village and beyond.

Tom Stoppard
Children, Generosity, Giving
"Writer and fighter" by Tim Adams, www.theguardian.com. September 20, 2008.

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
Children, Growing Up, Thinking
Tom Stoppard (2014). “Shipwreck: The Coast of Utopia Play 2”, p.83, Faber & Faber

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