You can't always let people do their own thing. Peter Shaffer More Quotes by Peter Shaffer More Quotes From Peter Shaffer Watching Italian opera, all those male sopranos screeching, stupid fat couples rolling their eyes about. That's not love, it's just rubbish. Peter Shaffer coupleeyestupid My actual childhood, as opposed to my adolescence, was not spent in London. Peter Shaffer adolescencechildhoodlondon 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. Peter Shaffer humortakenfunny Love is the only doorway from the prison of ourselves. Peter Shaffer prisondoorwayslove-is The best of Mozart's works cannot be even slightly rewritten without diminishment. Peter Shaffer I was born in Liverpool in England, and I lived there for the first nine years of my life. Peter Shaffer nineyearsfirsts 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. Peter Shaffer tracklittlesaverage 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!'. Peter Shaffer painuniquelooks 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. Peter Shaffer never-quitimaginationleave-me-alone Rehearsing a play is making the word flesh. Publishing a play is reversing the process. Peter Shaffer processfleshplay 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. Peter Shaffer extraordinary-thingstirestrong What use, after all, is man, if not to teach God His lessons? Peter Shaffer lessonsusemen 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. Peter Shaffer lightdarkplay I think I did have fantasies about being an actor. In fact, I know I did. Peter Shaffer actorsfactsthinking 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! Peter Shaffer husbandcaringboys Figaro is a bad play. It stirs up hatred between the classes. In France, it has caused nothing but bitterness. My own dear sister,Antoinette, writes me that she is beginning to be frightened of her own people. Peter Shaffer fearwritingclass I speak for all mediocrities in the world. I am their champion. I am their patron saint. Peter Shaffer championmediocritysaint It is very, very difficult for a playwright to write a scene in which a young man has his first deep experience of sex with a girl whom he found immensely attractive, is fully satisfied by this event and gets up and blinds a lot of horses. Peter Shaffer horsegirlsex Librarians as a race tend to be tedious. Peter Shaffer librariantediousrace What was evident was that Mozart was simply transcribing music completely finished in his head. And finished as most music is never finished. Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase and structure would fall. I was staring through the cage of those meticulous ink strokes at Absolute Beauty. Peter Shaffer inkwould-befall
