'Just get the right words in the right order'

 

“I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you might nudge the world a little or make a poem that children will speak for you when you are dead.” – Tom Stoppard

 

 A Czech-born playwright (in 1937), Stoppard escaped the Nazis as a child, ending up in Great Britain.  He changed his name and started writing journalistically in 1954.   Then in 1960 he decided to try writing plays and his first effort, A Walk on the Water, not only made it to the stage but was televised by the BBC.   His second play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead earned him international acclaim from which he never looked back, earning 4 Tony Awards in the process.

 

Also a writer for radio, television and film, he co-wrote the Academy Award winning script for the film Shakespeare in Love, in which Gwyneth Paltrow also won for Best Actress in her first starring role.  In 2013 Stoppard was awarded the prestigious PEN Pinter Prize for lifetime achievement.

 

“I cannot say that I write with any social objective,” Stoppard said.  “One writes because one loves writing, really.”