Tom Stoppard Quotes

Acting is illusion, as much illusion as magic is - and not so much a matter of being real.

I'm not real. I'm theatre.

At the end of the day, acting is all about telling lies. We are professional imposters and the audience accept that. We've made this deal that we tell you a tale and a pack of lies, but there will be a truth in it. You may enjoy it, or it will disturb you.

There's a way in which 'The Illusion' is a play about the theater.

A magician pulls a rabbit from a hat, and actors pull truth from fiction.

I think acting is magic. If I tell you all about myself it will spoil it.

Acting is a form of deception, and actors can mesmerize themselves almost as easily as an audience.

They were stars on this stage, each playing to an audience of two.

I absolutely love being on stage. I live and breathe the stage, and nothing makes me happier, but to perform.

Actors, said Granny, witheringly. As if the world weren't full of enough history without inventing more.

Players and painted stage took all my love, And not those things that they were emblems of.

The first job I ever did in the theatre, I was supposed to be a genius piano player. I couldn't play the piano, but you just sit there at a piano like you're playing, and suddenly all this amazing music comes out and the audience believes you can do it. It's the same with computers. I love scenes where there are people yanking at monitors, "yes I'll put you through now," and you know they're just doing that. But you can look brilliant at all this technology. I love it.

'Tis not need we know our every thought Or see the work shop where each mask is wrought Wherefrom we view the world of box and pit, Careless of wear, just so the mask shall fit And serve our jape's turn for a night or two.

Acting has been described as farting about in disguise.

I’ve carved the puppet, and I manipulate the strings, but while it’s on stage, the show belongs to the puppet.

I always distrust the word art when it is applied to acting.

Maybe I'm like acts of Congress or your favorite Chinese restaurant - you don't really want to know what's going on behind the door. I'm a real study in contrast, I expect, looking from without. But it adds up to what you get on stage.

We're actors. We're the opposite of people.

So long as there is one pretty girl left on the stage, the professional undertakers may hold up their burial of the theater.

There are no tough guys in wrestling.

In theater, blood is ketchup; in performance, everything's real.

Truth: An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance …

I loved entertainment and acting, performing. I just liked the stage and having the spotlight and stuff.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

Politics remind me a lot of 'RuPaul's Drag Race.' It's real but it isn't.