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.
If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth.
I felt like a Tinker toy kid building my own self out of one of those toy building sets; for as she laid her life before me, I reassembled the tableau of her words like a picture puzzle, and as I did, so my own life was rebuilt.
The law is reason, free from passion.
States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.
Perhaps some have created their own difficulties but don't the rest of us do exactly the same things? Are we not all beggars?
Just as King Midas turned everything to gold, Stalin turned everything to mediocrity.
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