My life is sectioned off into hot flushes, pursuits of this or that.
Interpretation
Life is often divided into intense experiences and various pursuits.
In this quote, Tom Stoppard reflects on the fragmented nature of life, suggesting that our existence consists of overwhelming moments and different endeavors that capture our attention. The mention of 'hot flushes' implies periods of intensity or passion, while 'pursuits of this or that' emphasizes the distractions and goals we chase throughout our lives. Together, these ideas convey a sense of the chaotic and multifaceted experience of being alive.
In practice
During a motivational speech about the complexities of life.
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.
That familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
The soil of a man’s heart is stonier; a man grows what he can and tends it.
I hoped our lives would continue this way forever, but inevitably the past came knocking. Not the good kind that was collectible but the bad kind that had arthritis.
You get into your late fifties, people start falling like flies all around you. I don't take life for granted any more. I'm really glad to be here.
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
I think people in Italy live their lives better than we do. It's an older country, and they've learned to celebrate dinner and lunch, whereas we sort of eat as quickly as we can to get through it.
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