Tom Stoppard on writing

Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.

Every exit is an entry somewhere.

It is better to be quotable than to be honest.

To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say and to finish without knowing what you have written.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau1712–1778

• Love

Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

C. S. Lewis1898–1963

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

Benjamin Franklin1706–1790

• Reading