Harold Pinter Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• A writer's life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don't have to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is stuck with it. But it is true to say that you are open to all the winds, some of them icy indeed. You are out on your own, out on a limb. You find no shelter, no protection - unless you lie - in which case of course you have constructed your own protection and, it could be argued, become a politician.

  Harold Pinter

  Lying, Wind, Choices

  Harold Pinter (2009). “Various Voices: Sixty Years of Prose, Poetry, Politics, 1948-2008”

  47 Copy quote

• I think that NATO is itself a war criminal.

  Harold Pinter

  War, Thinking, Criminals

  Interview with Ramona Koval, www.abc.net.au. December 22, 2002.

  12 Copy quote

• There is a movement to get an international criminal court in the world, voted for by hundreds of states-but with the noticeable absence of the United States of America.

  Harold Pinter

  America, Criminals, United States

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• I think it is the responsibility of a citizen of any country to say what he thinks.

  Harold Pinter

  Country, Responsibility, Thinking

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• How can the unknown merit reverence?

  Harold Pinter

  Merit, Reverence

  Harold Pinter (1967). “The Homecoming”, p.52, Grove Press

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• I tend to think that cricket is the greatest thing that God ever created on earth - certainly greater than sex, although sex isn't too bad either.

  Harold Pinter

  Sex, Thinking, Cricket Match

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• How can the unknown merit reverence? In other words how can you revere that of which you are ignorant? At the same time, it would be ridiculous to propose that what we know merits reverence. What we know merits any one of a number of things, but it stands to reason reverence isn't one of them. In other words, apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?

  Harold Pinter

  Knowledge, Numbers, Ignorant

  Harold Pinter (1967). “The Homecoming”, p.52, Grove Press

  7 Copy quote

• I don't give a damn what other people think. It's entirely their own business. I'm not writing for other people.

  Harold Pinter

  Writing, Thinking, People

  Harold Pinter, Mel Gussow (1996). “Conversations with Pinter”, p.20, Grove Press

  22 Copy quote

• This particular nurse said, Cancer cells are those which have forgotten how to die. I was so struck by this statement.

  Harold Pinter

  Death, Cancer, Cells

  Interview with Ramona Koval, www.abc.net.au. September 14, 2002.

  33 Copy quote

• All that happens is that the destruction of human beings - unless they're Americans - is called collateral damage.

  Harold Pinter

  Literature, Damage, Destruction

  Interview with Ramona Koval, www.abc.net.au. September 14, 2002.

  62 Copy quote

• I know the place. It is true. Everything we do Corrects the space Between death and me And you.

  Harold Pinter

  Space, Space Between, Knows

  Harold Pinter (1991). “Collected Poems and Prose”, p.42, Grove Press

  14 Copy quote

• The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law.

  Harold Pinter

  Law, Iraq, Invasion

  Harold Pinter (2015). “Death etc.”, p.9, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  18 Copy quote

• Iraq is just a symbol of the attitude of western democracies to the rest of the world.

  Harold Pinter

  Attitude, Iraq, Gdp

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• The theater's much the most difficult kind of writing for me, the most naked kind, you're so entirely restricted.... I find myself stuck with these characters who are either sitting or standing, and they've either got to walk out of a door, or come in through a door, and that's about all they can do.

  Harold Pinter

  Writing, Character, Doors

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• I hate brandy...it stinks of modern literature.

  Harold Pinter

  Hate, Literature, Modern

  Harold Pinter (1979). “Betrayal”, p.116, Grove Press

  7 Copy quote

• As a writer you're holding a dog. You let the dog run about. But you finally can pull him back. Finally, I'm in control. But the great excitement is to see what happens if you let the whole thing go. And the dog or the character really runs about, bites everyone in sight, jumps up trees, falls into lakes, gets wet, and you let that happen. That's the excitement of writing plays-to allow the thing to be free but still hold the final leash.

  Harold Pinter

  Running, Dog, Fall

  Interview with Anne-Marie Cusac, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. December 26, 2008.

  29 Copy quote

• I thought the plays would speak for themselves. But they didn't.

  Harold Pinter

  Play, Speak

  Interview with Anne-Marie Cusac, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. December 26, 2008.

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• It’s very difficult to feel contempt for others when you see yourself in the mirror.

  Harold Pinter

  Mirrors, Difficult, Contempt

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• I know little of women. But I've heard dread tales.

  Harold Pinter

  Women, Littles, Tales

  Harold Pinter (2013). “Moonlight”, p.31, Faber & Faber

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• I don't think there's been any writer like Samuel Beckett. He's unique. He was a most charming man and I used to send him my plays.

  Harold Pinter

  Unique, Men, Thinking

  54 Copy quote

• Clinton's hands remain incredibly clean, don't they, and Tony Blair's smile remains as wide as ever. I view these guises with profound contempt.

  Harold Pinter

  Smile, Views, Hands

  "Pinter: I won't be silenced". Interview with Matthew Tempest, www.theguardian.com. August 3, 2001.

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• Referees are the law. They have a whistle. They blow it. And that whistle is the articulation of God's justice.

  Harold Pinter

  Blow, Law, Justice

  Harold Pinter (2013). “Moonlight”, p.48, Faber & Faber

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• Nothing is more sterile or lamentable than the man content to live within himself.

  Harold Pinter

  Men, He Man

  Harold Pinter (1969). “Tea Party and the Basement: Two Plays”, p.14, Dramatists Play Service Inc

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• Watching first nights, though I've seen quite a few by now, is never any better. It's a nerve-racking experience. It's not a question of whether the play goes well or badly. It's not the audience reaction, it's my reaction. I'm rather hostile toward audiences—I don't much care for large bodies of people collected together. Everyone knows that audiences vary enormously; it's a mistake to care too much about them. The thing one should be concerned with is whether the performance has expressed what one set out to express in writing the play. It sometimes does.

  Harold Pinter

  Mistake, Writing, Night

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• I was brought up in the War. I was an adolescent in the Second World War. And I did witness in London a great deal of the Blitz.

  Harold Pinter

  War, World, London

  Interview with Ramona Koval, www.abc.net.au. December 22, 2002.

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