"An artist is the magician put among men to gratify — capriciously — their urge for immortality. The temples are built and brought down around him, continuously and contiguously, from Troy to the fields of Flanders. If there is any meaning in any of it, it is in what survives as art, yes even in the celebration of tyrants, yes even in the celebration of nonentities. What now of the Trojan War if it had been passed over by the artist's touch? Dust. A forgotten expedition prompted by Greek merchants looking for new markets. A minor redistribution of broken pots. But it is we who stand enriched, by a tale of heroes, of a golden apple, a wooden horse, a face that launched a thousand ships — and above all, of Ulysses, the wanderer, the most human, the most complete of all heroes — husband, father, son, lover, farmer, soldier, pacifist, politician, inventor and adventurer."
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AbsurdistsJews from the United KingdomPlaywrights from EnglandScreenwriters from EnglandJews from the Czech Republic
Original Language: English
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Stoppard called this "the most important" speech in the play
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tom_Stoppard
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Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM CBE FRSL (born Tomáš Straussler; 3 July 1937 – 29 November 2025) was a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter, knighted in 1997.
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