Peter Shaffer
Peter Shaffer
Sir Peter Levin Shaffer, CBEwas an English playwright and screenwriter of numerous award-winning plays, several of which have been turned into films...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth15 May 1926
years nine firsts
I was born in Liverpool in England, and I lived there for the first nine years of my life.
childhood london adolescence
My actual childhood, as opposed to my adolescence, was not spent in London.
two tragedy different
Tragedy, for me, is not a conflict between right and wrong, but between two different kinds of right.
love-is doorways prison
Love is the only doorway from the prison of ourselves.
champion world saint
I speak for all mediocrities in the world. I am their champion. I am their patron saint.
funny taken humor
All my wife has ever taken from the Mediterranean - from that whole vast intuitive culture - are four bottles of Chianti to make into lamps, and two china condiment donkeys labelled Sally and Peppy.
play flesh process
Rehearsing a play is making the word flesh. Publishing a play is reversing the process.
imagination leave-me-alone never-quit
You never quite know what's going to strike your imagination, or something that won't going to leave you alone, not going to leave alone, and this was one for me.
strong tire bores
It's an extraordinary thing about Mozart is that you never tire of him... he never bores me, and he doesn't... not only bore me, that's too strong a word.
daddy devil made
The Devil isn’t made by what Mommy says, or what Daddy says. The Devil is there.
dark light play
Black Comedy is a farce that is played in the dark, as you know, with the lights full on. It's the Chinese convention of reversing light and dark, and exactly where anybody is at any given moment is the play.
pain unique firsts
Look... to go through life and call it yours - your life - you first have to get your own pain. Pain that's unique to you. You can't just dip into the common bin and say 'That's enough!'...
mines
You have your words, and I have mine.
frustration accomplices my-own
I was an accomplice in my own frustration.