Peter Shaffer

English playwright and screenwriter (1926-2016)

Sir Peter Levin Shaffer, CBE (15 May 19266 June 2016) was an English dramatist and screenwriter, best known for his plays The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Equus and Amadeus (he adapted the last two for their screen versions).

Peter Shaffer in 1966

Do not confuse with Pierre Schaeffer.

Quotes

edit
  • The men climb the Andes.
    • The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Act I, sc. viii. (1964).
    • Sometimes misquoted as "They cross the Andes".
  • Rehearsing a play is making the word flesh. Publishing a play is reversing the process.
    • Equus (Harmondsworth: Penguin, [1973] 1984), p. 8.
  • Tragedy obviously does not lie in a conflict of Right and Wrong, but in a collision between two different kinds of Right...
    • Equus (Longman, [1973] 1993), p. 11
    • Conferː "Tragedy, for me, is not a conflict between right and wrong, but between two different kinds of right."
      • Interviewed by Mike Wood for the William Inge Center for the Arts. [1]
  • If London is a watercolor, New York is an oil painting.
  • That's the main trouble with the two nations: bad Brits are snobs, bad Americans are slobs.
    • Whom Do I Have the Honour of Addressing? (1990)
edit
 
Wikipedia
Wikipedia has an article about: