We drift down time, clutching at straws. But what good's a brick to a drowning man?
Interpretation
This quote suggests that in desperate situations, we often grasp at futile solutions. It highlights the absurdity of relying on ineffective help when we are in real trouble.
Tom Stoppard's quote reflects on the human tendency to seek solutions even when those solutions are impractical or ineffective, particularly during moments of crisis. The imagery of 'drifting down time' indicates a passive approach to life's challenges, while 'clutching at straws' signifies desperate attempts to find hope in unlikely places. Ultimately, the metaphor of ‘a brick to a drowning man’ underscores the futility of relying on heavy and unsuitable help when what is needed is something that can truly save us.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming challenges, one might quote this to illustrate how misguided efforts can lead to more frustration.
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.
Religion is a search for transcendence. But transcendence isn't necessarily sited in an external god, which can be a very unspiritual, unreligious concept.
Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today.
It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.
That we find a crystal or a poppy beautiful means that we are less alone, that we are more deeply inserted into existence than the course of a single life would lead us to believe.
Time present and time past / are both perhaps present in time future.
The root of all virtue and grace, of all faith and acceptable worship, is that we know that we have nothing but what we receive, and bow in deepest humility to wait upon God for it.
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