I'm aware of my old plays and occasionally think about them, but I'm much more anxious about finding the next play.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of future creativity over past achievements.
Tom Stoppard expresses a sentiment common among artists and creators: while reflecting on past works can be valuable, the greater concern is always about moving forward and creating new, innovative work. This highlights the anxiety and drive that comes with the pursuit of continuous growth and creativity in one’s craft.
In practice
This quote could be used at a theater workshop to inspire aspiring playwrights.
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.
What we're doing here will send a giant ripple through the universe.
Nations consist of people. And with their effort, a nation can accomplish all it could ever want.
If you’re alive, you can’t be bored in San Francisco. If you’re not alive, San Francisco will bring you to life.
A brighter future is ours to write. Let’s begin this new chapter — together — and let’s start the work right now.
The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don't know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened.
If two billion people wanted to watch a robot fly by Pluto, imagine what it will be like when the first humans step on Mars. It'll be the most unifying event anybody could ever put on.
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