Robert Bolt
A Man for All Seasons is the work most closely associated with Robert Bolt — a play that earned him a Tony Award for Best Play and, in its screen version, an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Bolt was born on 15 August 1924 in Sale and was a citizen of the United Kingdom who wrote in English throughout his career. He was educated at The Manchester Grammar School before going on to work across several creative roles: playwright, screenwriter, film screenwriter, film director, and actor. That breadth of activity placed him on both sides of the creative process over the course of his working life.
His screenplay work brought him particular recognition. He received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay on two occasions — once for A Man for All Seasons and once for Doctor Zhivago. Alongside those honours, he was awarded the BAFTA Award for Best British Screenplay and appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire. These awards mark a career that moved between the stage and the screen, with Bolt drawing consistent attention from major industry bodies on both sides of the Atlantic.
Bolt died on 20 February 1995 in Petersfield. His two Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay — for Doctor Zhivago and A Man for All Seasons — remain the most concrete measure of how his work was received during his lifetime, with the latter also connecting back to the Tony Award he had won for the original stage production.
Quotes by Robert Bolt
Some men think the Earth is round, others think it flat; it is a matter capable of question. But, if it is flat, will the King’s command make it round? And, if it is round, will the King’s command flatten it?
Death comes for us all; even at our birth – even at our birth, death does but stand aside a little. And every day he looks towards us and muses somewhat to himself whether that day or the next he will draw nigh. It is the law of nature, and the will of God.
The law is not a ‘light’ for you or any man to see by; the law is not an instrument of any kind. The law is a causeway upon which so long as he keeps to it a citizen may walk safely.
Morality’s not practical. Morality’s a gesture. A complicated gesture learnt from books.
The man who tells lies hides the truth, but the man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it.
If we lived in a State where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good, and greed would make us saintly. And we'd live like animals or angels in the happy land that /needs/ no heroes. But since in fact we see that avarice, anger, envy, pride, sloth, lust and stupidity commonly profit far beyond humility, chastity, fortitude, justice and thought, and have to choose, to be human at all... why then perhaps we /must/ stand fast a little --even at the risk of being heroes.
A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind.
I wish we could all have good luck, all the time! I wish we had wings! I wish rain water was beer!