Atheism is a crutch for those who cannot bear the reality of God.

— Tom Stoppard

Because children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn't disdain what lives only for a day. It pours the whole of itself into the moment. We don't value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last. Life's bounty is in its flow, later is too late. Where is the song when it's been sung? The dance when it's been danced? It's only we humans who want to own the future, too. We persuade ourselves that the universe is modestly employed in unfolding our destination. We note the haphazard chaos of history by the day, by the hour, but there is something wrong with the picture. Where is the unity, the meaning, of nature's highest creation? Surely those millions of little streams of accident and willfulness have their correction in the vast underground river which, without a doubt, is carrying us to the place where we're expected! But there is no such place, that's why it's called utopia. The death of a child has no more meaning than the death of armies, of nations. Was the child happy while he lived? That is a proper question, the only question. If we can't arrange our own happiness, it's a conceit beyond vulgarity to arrange the happiness of those who come after us.

— Tom Stoppard

Be happy -- if you're not even happy, what's so good about surviving?

— Tom Stoppard

Being a person is respect, because you're not a cat or a dog or a bunch of tulips, you're a human person and humanness isn't like something there can be different amounts of, it's maxed out from the start, total respect every time - kill one, kill a trainload, you're dissing the transcendental is all.

— Tom Stoppard

Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light. Dante reserved a place in his Inferno for those who willfully live in sadness - sullen in the sweet air, he says. Your 'honor' is all shame and timidity and compliance. Pure of stain! But the artist is the secret criminal in our midst. He is the agent of progress against authority. You are right to be a scholar. A scholar is all scruple, an artist is none. The artist must lie, cheat, deceive, be untrue to nature and contemptuous of history. I made my life into my art and it was an unqualified success. The blaze of my immolation threw its light into every corner of the land where uncounted young men sat each in his own darkness. What would I have done in Regard!? - think what I would have missed! I awoke the imagination of the century. I banged Ruskin's and Later's heads together, and from the moral severity of one and the aesthetic soul of the other I made art a philosophy that can look the twentieth century in the eye. Furthermore, I had genius, brilliancy, daring, I took charge of my own myth. Furthermore, I dipped my staff into the comb of wild honey. Furthermore, I tasted forbidden sweetness and drank the stolen waters. Furthermore, I lived at the turning point of the world where everything was waking up new - the New Drama, the New Novel, New Journalism, New Hedonism, New Paganism, even the New Woman. Where were you when all this was happening?

— Tom Stoppard

Carnal embrace is sexual congress, which is the insertion of the male genital organ into the female genital organ for purposes of procreation and pleasure. Fermat’s last theorem, by contrast, asserts that when x, y and z are whole numbers each raised to power of n, the sum of the first two can never equal the third when n is greater than 2.

— Tom Stoppard

Carnal embrace is the practice of throwing one's arms around a side of beef.

— Tom Stoppard

Chapter: You dare to call me that. I demand satisfaction! Septimus: Mrs Chapter demanded satisfaction, and now you are demanding satisfaction. I cannot spend my time day and night satisfying the demands of the Chapter family.

— Tom Stoppard

Chekhov was capable of casually tossing off deplorable comments in his letters, combined with a very modern anger against anti-Semitism.

— Tom Stoppard

Childhood is Last Chance Gulch for happiness. After that, you know too much.

— Tom Stoppard