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
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.
children world born
A child is born into a world of phenomena all equal in their power to enslave.
daddy devil made
The Devil isn’t made by what Mommy says, or what Daddy says. The Devil is there.
art goodness furnaces
Goodness is nothing in the furnace of art.
children eye normal
The Normal is the good smile in a child’s eyes - all right. It is also the dead stare in a million adults.
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.
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.
mines
You have your words, and I have mine.
husband caring boys
He'll be delivered from madness. What then? He'll feel himself acceptable! What then? Do you think feelings like his can be simply re-attached, like plasters? Stuck on to other objects we select? Look at him! ... My desire might be to make this boy an ardent husband - a caring citizen - a worshipper of abstract and unifying God. My achievement, however, is more likely to make a ghost!
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!'...
mother real kids
Worship isn't destructive, Martin. I know that. I don't. I only know it's the core of his life. What else has he got? He can hardly read. He knows no physics or engineering to make to world real for him. No paintings to show him how others have enjoyed it. No music except television jingles. No history except tales from a desperate mother. No friends. Not one kid to give him a joke, or make him know himself more moderately. He's a modern citizen for whom society doesn't exist.
thinking worship can-do
Can you think of anything worse one can do to anybody than take away their worship?
average track littles
All reined up in old language and old assumptions, straining to jump clean-hoofed on to a whole new track of being I only suspect is there. I can't see it, because my educated, average head is being held at the wrong angle. I can't jump because the bit forbids it, and my own basic force - my horsepower, if you like - is too little.
play flesh process
Rehearsing a play is making the word flesh. Publishing a play is reversing the process.