Parenting & Family Quote by Peter Shaffer

Shaffer is smuggling a manifesto into a seemingly gentle observation: fantasy isn’t an escape from the self, it’s a diagnostic tool. Coming from a playwright who built entire careers out of people staging their own inner lives, the line lands less like a self-help tip and more like a theatrical theory of identity. In his world, the most truthful confession often arrives wearing a mask.

The intent is pointed. Adults like to treat fantasy as decorative, a leisure activity you outgrow once you “get realistic.” Shaffer flips that hierarchy. Children, he notes, use fantasy with a kind of ruthless efficiency: they try on roles, invent rules, test power, rehearse fear, and grant themselves temporary godhood. Pay attention to what your imagination keeps circling, and you’ll see your needs and wounds more clearly than you would in polite conversation.

The subtext is also a critique of “authenticity” as something you merely uncover. For Shaffer, you compose yourself. The stories you reach for reveal what you’re hungry to be, not just what you already are. That’s why fantasy can feel embarrassing or private: it bypasses the curated public self and goes straight to desire, resentment, longing, taboo.

Contextually, it tracks with Shaffer’s most famous characters: people whose imagined worlds become arenas for devotion and violence, worship and rebellion. Fantasy guides, but it can also govern. He’s warning and inviting at once: if you want to know yourself, watch what you make up when no one’s grading you.