Wheels have been set in motion, and they have their own pace, to which we are...condemned. Each move is dictated by the previous one - that is the meaning of order. If we start being arbitrary it'll just be a shambles: at least, let us hope so. Because if we happened, just happened to discover, or even suspect, that our spontaneity was part of their order, we'd know that we were lost. A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty - and, by which definition, a philosopher - dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; his two-fold security.
Tom Stoppard
Related A chinese philosopher once had a dream that he was a butterfly. From that day on, he was never quite... UNKNOWN 35. God is entitled to a portion of our income—not because He needs it but because we need to give... JAMES C. DOBSON Each move is dictated by the previous one--that is the meaning of order TOM STOPPARD I believe that there is a Matrix and... to be more accurate I am in the Pornography Matrix. DEYTH BANGER I like the word 'fuck'. The word means what it means, but it also means whatever you need it to mean... LISA GLATT The answer isn't more time but a greater awareness of the time we have. CRAIG GROESCHEL His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. At on... ERNEST HEMINGWAY They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM And if Amsterdam was hell, and if hell was a memory, then he realized that perhaps there was some pu... PAUL AUSTER Life is not interested in good and evil. Don Quixote was constantly choosing between good and evil, ... WILLIAM FAULKNER If Stephen King was a killer, he will be the best killer ever existed, check out his novels, check o... DEYTH BANGER We saw Elvis, and he was so happy to see us. And he loved the whole idea that we were going to run a... CONNIE STEVENS When it's clear that we have a commitment to God that comes before anything else in our lives, most ... CRAIG GROESCHEL Once I dreamed I was a butterfly, and now I no longer know whether I am Chuang Tzu, who dreamed I wa... CHUANG TZU Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our ... ELLEN G. WHITE Anyways, that very same night there was a fight in the casino on B Deck. Some of the passengers got ... CHRISTINA ENGELA They were really getting quite fond of their strange pet and hoped that Aslan would allow them to ke... C.S. LEWIS He said that we belonged together because he was born with a flower and I was born with a butterfly ... GEMMA MALLEY He had said that our lives are steered by uncertainties, many of which are disruptive or even daunti... AMOR TOWLES He's still Phil, and we love him. He was an important part of our congregation and one of the things... JOE KELLY I realized that day that blessings come in a variety of shapes, colors, and sizes. CRAIG GROESCHEL And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, / If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the LORD, and ... BIBLE He was no lover in a worldly sense; the only love he knew was that of divine understanding, of takin... DEZSő KOSZTOLáNYI If it was just me and Elvis one on one, which only happened once or twice in the times that I did se... MAC DAVIS His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. At one ti... ERNEST HEMINGWAY The idea that he is haunted by what humans do I just loved that irony because we are all so afrai... MARKUS ZUSAK We live aware of God moment by moment. He is not part of our lives; He is our life. CRAIG GROESCHEL To the spiritual perplexity which exercised so many of the rarest souls of the nineteenth century, G... JOHN BAILLIE Scott was punk rock and basically we were just worried about his health. We got kind of midway throu... BRANDON THOMAS (Terrero) played a nice game yesterday. Unfortunately, he gets the highlight because of what happene... BOB MELVIN If he was away getting something he needed or having a meal, he wouldn't be under the rubble, but we... RUBEN ESCUDERO Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you... C. JOYBELL C. When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has ... C.S. LEWIS If any philosopher had been asked for a definition of infinity, he might have produced some unintell... BERTRAND RUSSELL Feast of Catherine of Siena, Mystic, Teacher, 1380 He has loved us without being loved... We are b... CATHERINE OF SIENA 38. “A wet bird never flies at night.” (My grandfather said that to me when I was a child and wa... JAMES C. DOBSON He thought I was just ignoring him, ... I told him that if I had gotten the letter, of course I woul... MITCH ALBOM Commemoration of Katherine of Alexandria, Martyr, 4th century "The Law", he says, "was our 'pedag... C. H. DODD Chris proposed exactly the way I've always dreamed. Our families were close by, but it was just ... HILLARY SCOTT He had an effective removal order against him, he had a legal deportation order against him, there w... JANIS FERGUSSON He didn’t know if that was really true or not, but he discovered something which was tremendously ... STEPHEN KING I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who ... ZHUANGZI I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who ... CHUANG TZU Obviously he can do a lot by himself. I thought we did a decent job defensively on him. He got what ... ED PATRICK Let me implore the reader to try to believe, if only for a moment, that God, who made these deservin... C.S. LEWIS He was arrested as a result of a call from our tips line. We do know that he was moving around quite... HOWARD SAFIR Stairs to climb are difficult it takes time and effort and going down is easies job... what do I mea... DEYTH BANGER He was looking amazing. He was feeling amazing and I think it was just wonderful to have him back on... KARAN JOHAR We knew that they were a good team, I don?t think we underestimated them at all. It was just a fight... BARBARA TURNER We use the word cross in our hymns, in our piety, in our prayers, and in our pastoral language. But ... JOHN HOWARD YODER [Then the earth began shaking at Warner Bros.] We just had a wonderful team there, ... But it's just... HEIDI NEWFIELD Was it possible to feel nostalgic about something that had never happened to him, possible for nosta... ASHIM SHANKER That was crucial and I thought we really got caught in the emotion of that. We had just hit a three ... DENNIS BRADLEY The Ephebians believed that every man should have the vote (provided that he wasn't poor, foreign, n... TERRY PRATCHETT My own participation in the campaign was delayed by the death of my son Calvin, which occurred on th... CALVIN COOLIDGE We know that could have been any of us, and it's just really unfortunate that it happened to him. We... JACK KRAMER The Imperial Senate, ever conscious of the weight of public opinion resting on the tip of the pencil... CHRISTINA ENGELA We believe that there is possibly one. We do have a witness who says he did speak to the driver of t... ROB ROGERS Convinced that we're living the whole time that we're dying. We decide to go out walking the wh... TEGAN QUIN Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purp... ZHUANGZI Ali was at almost every practice we had. So when he wasn't there that night we thought it was strang... GENE BARBER His existence had always been comfortable, he had always held a clear picture of himself, his duties... NEAL SHUSTERMAN She wasn't bitter. She was sad, though. But it was a hopeful kind of sad. The kind of sad that just ... STEPHEN CHBOSKY So, I guess we are who we are for alot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even... STEPHEN CHBOSKY I love my mom so much. I don't care if that's corny to say. I think on my next birthday, I'm going t... STEPHEN CHBOSKY We Are All Infinite STEPHEN CHBOSKY You can't just sit there and put everyone's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You ... STEPHEN CHBOSKY I saw other people there. Old men sitting alone. Young girls with blue eye shadow and awkward jaws. ... STEPHEN CHBOSKY That one moment when you know you are not a sad story. You are ALIVE. STEPHAN CHBOSKY Somos quienes somos por un montón de razones.Quizás nunca conozcamos la mayoría de ellas.Pero aun... STEPHEN CHBOSKY Ambos dijeron que tomara asiento y parecían hablar en serio, así que me senté. STEPHEN CHBOSKY I know these will all be stories some day, and our pictures will become old photographs. We all beco... STEPHEN CHBOSKY So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybewe'll never know most of them. STEPHEN CHBOSKY So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. STEPHEN CHBOSKY There's nothing like the deep breathes after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore st... STHEPHEN CHBOSKY no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks, when the teacher rings the bell, drop... STEPHEN CHBOSKY I don't know the significance of this, but I find it very interesting. STEPHEN CHBOSKY Maybe it’s sad that these are now memories. And maybe it’s not sad. STEPHEN CHBOSKY This so gnawed at him on some nights that he lay awake wondering just how many unknown and similarly... LOUISE ERDRICH It was a cold morning, and he shivered a little; but he had been taught by his uncle that his prayer... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I think the most important thing that happened to us the whole time we were here was more recent ... JANETTE LOW We talked at half time saying we wanted to have to make them come back two points at a time. Not one... DAN SCHWIETERMAN In the days of His earthly ministry, only those could speak to him who came where He was: if He was ... WILLIAM TEMPLE Even if Zuma was to develop the authoritarian impulses of a Mugabe, he would be checked—not least ... MARK GEVISSER I asked Raghav, as we were looking over the wasteland, if the Muslims they burnt would beg for their... SUKETU MEHTA ...He was a greater craftsman even than Isaac, and he knew it, and so, presently, did Isaac. ELIZABETH GOUDGE You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part. HENRY JAMES I just sort of take it from a character perspective, and I don't know if he was necessarily spiritua... RYAN GOSLING If he was not exactly a Spartan, he was, you might say, spartanatical. Things happened to you; they ... A.E. COPPARD He tried to remember Moon Child's eyes, but was no longer able to. He was sure of only one thing: th... MICHAEL ENDE That's why we seize the moment try to freeze it and own it, squeeze it and hold it. EMINEM Most of us think we're too busy or too important to rest for a day. CRAIG GROESCHEL We just felt that our start was going to be real important because this was their fourth game in fou... MARC HABSCHEID He was lovable the way a child is lovable, and he was capable of returning love with a childlike pur... JONATHAN FRANZEN The company had virtually shut down operations in Jackson by that time. They were no longer sending ... LARRY BUTLER The evil components of our shadow are the part of us that we deplore, the part of us that we prefer ... KILROY J. OLDSTER I asked him if he was going to do the bidding of the mayor and I was pretty satisfied with his answe... DAVID BLOOM Our Prophet was a radical too- he fought against the injustices of his community and challenged the ... ABU BAKAR BASHIR One player doesn't make a team - although Ahmad is a unique player [and] he is different from the re... CLINT SINTIM He reminded me of one of those adventure seekers on TV. He hadn’t shaved in a few days at least, a... JESSICA FORTUNATO
More Tom Stoppard
Good things, when short, are twice as good. TOM STOPPARD Time is short, life is short, there's a lot to know. So I skip the entertainers in the newspaper... TOM STOPPARD The thing that happens remarkably often is that the people who are writing a dissertation believe th... TOM STOPPARD I'm offended by things and take pathetic little stands against them. TOM STOPPARD My whole life is waiting for the questions to which I have prepared answers. TOM STOPPARD The text loses its virginity simply by being staged: it's no longer the abstract ideal version; ... TOM STOPPARD I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones... TOM STOPPARD Any revival in which I am involved is liable to change. TOM STOPPARD Hotel rooms inhabit a separate moral universe. TOM STOPPARD All your life, you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye. An... 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TOM STOPPARD Chekhov understood that people are mysterious and can't be reduced to what we nowadays call '... TOM STOPPARD I am not a mathematician, but I was aware that for centuries, mathematics was considered the queen o... TOM STOPPARD Success is a sort of metaphysical experience. I live exactly as I did before - only on a slightly bi... TOM STOPPARD There must have been a moment, at the beginning, were we could have said -- no. But somehow we misse... TOM STOPPARD Chekhov was capable of casually tossing off deplorable comments in his letters, combined with a very... TOM STOPPARD If you let the plot be determined by what you feel is in the character's mind at that point, it ... TOM STOPPARD I was interested by the idea that artists working in a totalitarian dictatorship or tsarist autocrac... TOM STOPPARD One of the attractions of translating 'Heroes' is that it's not the kind of play that I ... TOM STOPPARD It is easily and often overlooked that when Thomas Jefferson asserted that life, liberty and the pur... TOM STOPPARD After all these years, I definitely associate having a pen in my hand with having an ashtray just ou... TOM STOPPARD Because theatre is a story-telling art form, we feel entitled to assume that the playwright got ther... TOM STOPPARD I barely remembered my father; I'm confused between genuine memory and the few photographs that ... TOM STOPPARD I'm good at being funny. TOM STOPPARD If Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at the age of 22, it would have changed the history of... TOM STOPPARD A man breaking his journey between one place and another at a third place of no name, character, pop... TOM STOPPARD If I hadn't left Czechoslovakia, I would have been dead. TOM STOPPARD I just happen to know quite a lot of what happened in Czechoslovakia between 1968 and the fall of Co... TOM STOPPARD I went to an English school and was brought up in English. So I don't feel Czech. TOM STOPPARD The idea that being human and having rights are equivalent - that rights are inherent - is unintelli... TOM STOPPARD Because children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's purpose is to be a... TOM STOPPARD Each move is dictated by the previous one--that is the meaning of order TOM STOPPARD Well I believe in the desirability of an optimal society. TOM STOPPARD The whole notion of journalism being an institution whose fundamental purpose is to educate and info... TOM STOPPARD One doesn't want one's democracy to behave like a dictatorial or fascistic police. One doesn... TOM STOPPARD Rosencrantz: Do you think death could possibly be a boat? Guildenstern: No, no, no...Death is...... TOM STOPPARD Dying is not romantic, and death is not a game which will soon be over... Death is not anything...de... TOM STOPPARD It's better to be quotable than to be honest. TOM STOPPARD Life in a box is better than no life at all ... I expect. TOM STOPPARD The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means. TOM STOPPARD We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on ... TOM STOPPARD Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end? TOM STOPPARD The truth is always a compound of two half- truths, and you never reach it, because there is always ... TOM STOPPARD The days of the digital watch are numbered. TOM STOPPARD If Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at the age of 22, it would have changed the history of... TOM STOPPARD I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity. TOM STOPPARD I agree with everything you say, but I would attack to the death your right to say it. TOM STOPPARD Fifty-five crystal spheres geared to God TOM STOPPARD We're actors - we're the opposite of people. TOM STOPPARD It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting. TOM STOPPARD Pirates could happen to anyone. TOM STOPPARD Dying is not romantic, and death is not a game which will soon be over... Death is not anything... d... TOM STOPPARD I think I enlist comedy to a serious purpose. TOM STOPPARD That I have the right to express myself freely at all times in all circumstances entails the idea th... TOM STOPPARD In the end, my children put me on to Pink Floyd when they were teenagers. TOM STOPPARD Pink Floyd are one of a handful of bands I've listened to a lot and whose concerts I've been... TOM STOPPARD When I was younger, I could do something useful just by being free for half a day, but now I need fi... TOM STOPPARD You do know what's coming up when you're translating. I suppose the concentration, then, is ... TOM STOPPARD Life is a gamble, at terrible odds - if it was a bet you wouldn't take it. TOM STOPPARD For me, the reputation for teaching language in general, and East European languages most particular... TOM STOPPARD Like many people, I only knew of Ford Madox Ford through a book called 'The Good Soldier,' w... TOM STOPPARD A free press needs to be a respected press. TOM STOPPARD He's someone who flies around from hotel to hotel and thinks the most interesting thing about any st... TOM STOPPARD I want to support the whole idea of the humanities and teaching the humanities as being something th... TOM STOPPARD In the period before the arrival of Mrs. Thatcher, politics had been in such low esteem. Everything ... TOM STOPPARD It is no light matter to put in jeopardy a single life when it is the very singularity of each life ... TOM STOPPARD Chater: You dare to call me that. I demand satisfaction! Septimus: Mrs Chater demanded sa... TOM STOPPARD THOMASINA: But then the Egyptian noodle made carnal embrace with the enemy who burned the great... TOM STOPPARD Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect. You'd have a chance at least. You could lie t... TOM STOPPARD My life feels, week to week, incomplete to the level of being pointless if I am not in preparation f... TOM STOPPARD I'm not one of those writers who insist they don't read reviews and don't care much abou... TOM STOPPARD All of my scripts are based on other people's novels. Generally, I consider myself as one who wr... TOM STOPPARD Life is a gamble, at terrible odds. If it were a bet you wouldn’t take it. TOM STOPPARD I once did a radio program with a famous materialist, that is to say a scientist who believed that a... TOM STOPPARD Lou Reed was a hero because he was an anti-hero. TOM STOPPARD Be happy -- if you're not even happy, what's so good about surviving? TOM STOPPARD It is not hard to understand modern art. If it hangs on a wall it's a painting, and if you can w... TOM STOPPARD [Now] Bach ... a splash in the making. TOM STOPPARD What a fine persecution - to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened. TOM STOPPARD Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order you can nudge t... TOM STOPPARD If you took away everything in the world that had to be invented, there'd be nothing left except a l... TOM STOPPARD Get me inside any boardroom and I'll get any decision I want. TOM STOPPARD The sense of suppression, ... or self-suppression, and pressure generally which came off even this p... TOM STOPPARD James Joyce - an essentially private man who wished his total indifference to public notice to be un... TOM STOPPARD The House of Lords, an illusion to which I have never been able to subscribe - responsibility withou... TOM STOPPARD My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful; but when I had to choose one or the other... TOM STOPPARD A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's ... TOM STOPPARD Eternity's a terrible thought TOM STOPPARD We've traveled too far, and our momentum has taken over; we move idly towards eternity, without poss... TOM STOPPARD We're actors. We're the opposite of people. TOM STOPPARD the bewilderment and incomprehension of critics and audience. TOM STOPPARD It's wholly deserved and I am completely thrilled. As a writer he has been unswerving for 50 years, ... TOM STOPPARD wholly deserved and I'm completely thrilled. TOM STOPPARD Every exit is an entrance somewhere else TOM STOPPARD I don't respond well to the Olympic noise, which is the noise of nationalistic triumphalism. TOM STOPPARD Years and years ago, there was a production of The Tempest, out of doors, at an Oxford college on a ... TOM STOPPARD Traitors hoist by their own petard?--or victims of the gods?--we shall never know! TOM STOPPARD I shall have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love, love, love, above all. Love as there has ne... TOM STOPPARD It is a defect of God's humor that he directs our hearts everywhere but to those who have a right to... TOM STOPPARD It would have been nice to have had unicorns. TOM STOPPARD It's where we're nearest to our humanness. Useless knowledge for its own sake. Useful knowledge is g... TOM STOPPARD It makes me so happy. To be at the beginning again, knowing almost nothing.... A door like this has ... TOM STOPPARD Seduced her? Every time I turned round she was up a library ladder. In the end I gave in. That remin... TOM STOPPARD I actually went to an Oasis concert. I thought they were a brilliant songwriting band. TOM STOPPARD You can't treat royalty like people with normal perverted desires. TOM STOPPARD Comparing what we're looking for misses the point. It's wanting to know that makes us matter. Otherw... TOM STOPPARD Carnal embrace is sexual congress, which is the insertion of the male genital organ into the female ... TOM STOPPARD HANNAH: Don't let Bernard get to you. It's only performance art, you know. Rhetoric, they used to te... TOM STOPPARD Life is a gamble at terrible odds, if it were a bet, you would not take it TOM STOPPARD A healthy attitude is contagious but don't wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier. TOM STOPPARD It is an interesting view of atheism, as a sort of "crutch" for those who can't stand the reality of... TOM STOPPARD The idea of the state is, or should be, a very limited, prescribed idea. The state looks after the d... TOM STOPPARD I have a spasm of envy for the person that was killed by a falling bookcase, as long as it doesn'... TOM STOPPARD I was an awful critic. I operated on the assumption that there was an absolute scale of values again... TOM STOPPARD What is the society we wish to protect? Is it the society of complete surveillance for the commonwea... TOM STOPPARD Even when the writing seems very frivolous, I'm puritanical. I don't mean my subject matter.... TOM STOPPARD The idea that public safety, the safety of the innocent, is an absolute which trumps every other con... TOM STOPPARD I feel overestimated. TOM STOPPARD I'm not a theoretician about playwriting, but I have a strong sense that plays have to be pitche... TOM STOPPARD We're actors — we're the opposite of people! TOM STOPPARD Love is - OK, it's 20 things, but it isn't 19. And I think that love reaches for something w... TOM STOPPARD As a writer, Harold has been unswerving for 50 years, TOM STOPPARD If you associate enough with older people who do enjoy their lives, who are not stored away in any g... TOM STOPPARD I don't do interviews under false pretenses. TOM STOPPARD Despite the digital age, there is a very large number of venues and spaces that are looking for play... TOM STOPPARD I'm not like some other writers: I have no actual urgent need or desire to add to what's wri... TOM STOPPARD I've voted in every election - not always for the same political party and never with any degree... TOM STOPPARD I'm vaguely embarrassed by myself sometimes. TOM STOPPARD As a playwright, you can cover a lot of waterfront without being able to hold your own against an ex... TOM STOPPARD I like dialogue that is slightly more brittle than life. I have always admired and wished to write o... TOM STOPPARD When I think of how things could have turned out, I feel as if I've dodged, not just bullets, bu... TOM STOPPARD I mean, if Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at twenty-two, the history of music would have... TOM STOPPARD My scripts are possibly too talkative. Sometimes I watch a scene I've written, and occasionally ... TOM STOPPARD Nobody would be killed on the roads if the speed limit were 10 miles an hour. TOM STOPPARD There we were - demented children mincing about in clothes that no one ever wore, speaking as no man... TOM STOPPARD Theater in New York is nearer to the street. In London, you have to go deep into the building, usual... TOM STOPPARD I don't think falling in love in Slovakia is much different from falling in love in Tunbridge We... TOM STOPPARD GUIL: It [Hamlet's madness] really boils down to symptoms. Pregnant replies, mystic allusions, mista... TOM STOPPARD A man speaking sense to himself is no madder than a man speaking nonsense not to himself. TOM STOPPARD There are certain sorts of jokes which have only to do with the substitution of the unexpected word ... TOM STOPPARD Schepisi is the sort of director who could, would, and frequently did phone me whenever he came acro... TOM STOPPARD Directors sometimes have good ideas that I wished I'd had, not on rewriting but simply on stagin... TOM STOPPARD One of the reasons why there are so many versions of Chekhov is that translations date in a way that... TOM STOPPARD The fact is, I loved being English. I was very happy to be turned into an English schoolboy. TOM STOPPARD You end up going to school plays quite a bit as a parent, there are a lot of kids who are doing the ... TOM STOPPARD Free to move, speak, extemporize, and yet. We have not been cut loose. Our truancy is defined by on... TOM STOPPARD Let me get it straight. Your father was king. You were his only son. Your father dies. You are of ag... TOM STOPPARD As Socrates so philosophically put it, since we don't know what death is, it is illogical to fear it... TOM STOPPARD All your life you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye, and... TOM STOPPARD We are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style. TOM STOPPARD Rosencrantz: I don't believe in it anyway. Guildenstern: What? Rosencrantz: England. ... TOM STOPPARD