Peter Shaffer Quotes

Being a playwright is like the equivalent of doing a jigsaw puzzle that has 1,500 pieces, and it's a jigsaw of a blue sky. Not a cloud in sight.

Writers write. Dreamers talk about it.

If you want to be a writer, just write. There's no magic to it.

A builder is like a little god - somebody who does things, doesn't just draw things.

But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That's all.

A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.

Art is doing. Art deals directly with life.

Just write what comes to you.

In the end, you have to just sit down, shut up, and write.

There is no technique, there is just the way to do it. Now, are we going to measure or are we going to cook?

The way to do some things is to do them.

Don't take too much advice. Most people who have a lot of advice to give ~ with a few exceptions ~ generalize whatever they did. Don't over-analyze everything. I myself have been guilty of over-thinking problems. Just build things and find out if they work.

Put out as much as you can. It doesn't do anything sitting on a shelf.

Beauty was not simply something to behold; it was something one could do.

To be creative you actually have to do something.

Finally, one just has to shut up, sit down, and write.

When you begin your work, nothing exists. When it is finished it looks as if it just happened, spontaneously, effortlessly, convincingly. It looks as though it had been there all along.

I've known several cases of writers who decide to write about something and they research the hell out of it and when they're ready to write, they can't move because they are so burdened. I start writing. Whatever I need somehow comes to hand.

Il n'y a de réalité que dans l'action. (There is no reality except in action.)

Yes, I am one of those people who feels that most of my work is adaptation of one sort or another. For me, it's a way to jump-start the engine. For example, some people use the technique of basing a character on a friend. They start writing with his or her voice, then at a certain point, the character takes off on his or her own. It probably no longer resembles the model, but it helped the author to get going. I find that's true of form, too. For every play I've written, I know what play I was trying to imitate. That helps me get going.

I like the life of ideas and applying ideas to action.

We were put on this earth to make things.

I am a poet in deeds--not often in words.

But when I got to SMU and decided to take a playwriting class, I said this isn't a bad idea. IfI write characters, they could be as dumb as me, and I don't have to be very smart.

In daily life what distinguishes the master is the using those materials he has, instead of looking about for what are more renowned, or what others have used well.