Mel Gussow quotes:

Though the clown is often deadpan, he is a connoisseur of laughter.

Bring a child and ignore your inhibitions.

More than any other contemporary British playwright, Tom Stoppard populates his plays -- from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead to The Invention of Love (his portrait of the poet and scholar A. E. Housman) -- with characters from life and literature. But one cannot always tell the difference between those who are real and those who are imaginary.