Peter Shaffer Quotes

When I was about 12, I spent the summer writing four plays on my dad's old typewriter for a school play competition. And I wrote little comic bits at secondary school and at university.

I wrote my first play when I was nine. It was performed at Hampstead Theatre.

I'm a writer. I'm not an actress.

It's hard to find a play that's right for me to do. Rather than waiting around for the right script to come along, I decided to write one myself.

I thought I wanted to be a playwright because I was interested in stories and telling stories.

Playwriting gets into your blood and you can't stop it. At least not until the producers or the public tell you to.

I grew up wanting to be a writer for theatre.

I love novels, but I'm not a novelist. I'm just a dramatist, which means I write lines for actors. That's all I have ever wanted to do.

I'm not really a 'puppet' person in particular; I think they are very theatrical, and I've found different uses for them in shows, but my true interest is in writing Broadway musicals.

I am an internationally produced playwright.

In grammar school I read 'Act One' by Moss Hart, and being a playwright struck me as the most magical and romantic career anyone could have... But I never did write a play.

I dreamed of being an actress when I was a little kid because you don't know then that the writer writes everything the actor is saying. But as I got older, I got into college and became more aware that writing is another option, and I started getting into it, too.

I never wanted to be a playwright.

I was a writer. I just wasn't a very good one. I was lucky enough to have a playwriting teacher who told me that I'd be a better actor than I would a playwright.

The person whose work introduced me to the craft was Lorraine Hansberry. The person who taught me to love the craft was Tennessee Williams. The person who really taught me the power of the craft was August Wilson, and the person who taught me the political heft of the craft was Arthur Miller.

A lot of American playwrights seem to have a career as a playwright. I don't consider it a career at all.

I'm probably only going to make 10 movies, so I'm already planning on what I'm going to do after that. That's why I'm counting them. I have two more left. I want to stop at a certain point. What I want to do, basically, is I want to write novels, and I want to write theatre, and I want to direct theatre.

I have a nice little movie career, and I write plays and do my act.

I think Shakespeare, at his heart, was just the way all of us are that make movies: He wanted to entertain people.

I think visually... so, even when I'm writing a play, I'm envisioning it.

I'm more interested in writing than in performing.

So I decided to start writing plays, and went to Yale.

My job is essentially that of an entertainer, no different to that of a musician, no different to that of an actor. I just happen to be an author.

I want to write a play. I'd like to do an original musical. I should probably put together a poetry collection.

I'm just attracted to good material and great characters and that can come in any form, whether it's television or film or a theatre piece.