It's very common for people to recommend something to me because they're going on what I've already written, when, what really is the case, is that you want to write about something you haven't written about, in ways that you haven't done before.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of exploring new ideas rather than repeating past themes in writing.
Tom Stoppard expresses the notion that when people suggest topics to him, they often base their recommendations on his previous work. However, he believes that true creativity and writing should focus on uncharted territories, pushing the boundaries of what has already been explored and engaging in new forms of expression.
In practice
A writer might use this quote in a workshop about finding one's unique voice.
Love is - OK, it's 20 things, but it isn't 19. And I think that love reaches for something which is very, very deep in us and is very easily obscured, and is also very easily denied, which is the instinct towards the other person, other than toward the self.
A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there.
I once did a radio program with a famous materialist, that is to say a scientist who believed that absolutely everything was physical and that all emotions were reductive to little electrical impulses in your neurons. And I found that I didn't believe that. But what the emotions really are, I don't have an alternative theory.
One of the reasons why there are so many versions of Chekhov is that translations date in a way that the original doesn't; translations seem to be of their time.
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; in his two-fold security.
Chekhov directors and Chekhov actors love working on his plays because there seems to be no end to what you can find out about the micro-narrative when you're investigating a text.
Love your rage, not your cage.
Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs.
Dear young people, please, don’t be observers of life, but get involved. Jesus did not remain an observer, but he immersed himself. Don’t be observers, but immerse yourself in the reality of life, as Jesus did.
When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?
The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey.
She was fluent in four languages and yet her fists against the rusted hood were the fullest articulation of her defeat.
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