I get the impression sometimes that a play arrives in a sequence of events that I have no control over.
Interpretation
The creative process can feel beyond the artist's control, influenced by external circumstances.
This quote by Tom Stoppard reflects the notion that the creation of art, particularly in theater, does not always stem from the artist's deliberate intention. Often, plays evolve through a series of unforeseen events and collaborative interactions, suggesting that the creative journey is as much about serendipity and collective input as it is about individual vision.
In practice
Using this quote in a discussion about the unpredictable nature of art creation.
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.
You can't have it all one way - be on the telly and the radio and make lots of money - and not offer anything to your followers when they need you.
I'll tell you something, and this is true: I've never been able to write a film which I didn't respect. I just can't do it. I'm very happy about all the films I haven't done.
One of the best things about directing movies, as opposed to merely writing them, is that there's no confusion about who's to blame: you are.
When you write a song, it may come from a personal space, but it very seldom actually represents you. It comes out of a sort of mood of melancholy, somehow. It's almost theatrical.
There is a connection, hard to explain logically but easy to feel, between achievement in public life and progress in the arts.
The only condition of fighting for the right to create is faith in your own vocation, readiness to serve, and refusal to compromise.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.