Stoppard, Thomas(Tom; orig. Thomas Straussler)

British (Czechoslovakian-born) dramatist and screenwriter

wrote plays "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" 1967, "Enter a Free Man" 1968, "The Real Inspector Hound" 1968, "After Magritte" 1970, "Dogg's Our Pet" 1972, "Jumpers" 1972, "Travesties" 1975, "Dirty Linen" 1976, "Night and Day" 1978, "Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth" 1979, "Undiscovered Country" 1980, "On the Razzle" 1981, "The Real Thing" 1982, "Rough Crossing" 1984, "Dalliance" 1986, "Hapgood" 1988, "Arcadia" 1993, co-wrote screenplays "Brazil" 1984, "Shakespeare in Love" 1998, wrote screenplays "Empire of the Sun" 1987, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" 1989, "The Russia House" 1989, "Billy Bathgate" 1990

• "Life is a gamble, at terrible odds-if it was a bet you wouldn't take it."
• "Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art."
• "If Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at the age of 22, it would have changed the history of music... and of aviation."
• "We're actors - we're the opposite of people."
• "The truth is always a compound of two half- truths, and you never reach it, because there is always something more to say."