Harold Pinter
I've had my fill of these city guttersnipes--all that scavenging scum! They're the sort of people, who, if the gates of heaven opened to them, all they'd feel would be a draught.Collection: Cities
In Cuba I have always understood harsh treatment of dissenting voices as stemming from a "siege situation" imposed upon it from outside. And I believe that to a certain extent that is true.Collection: Believe
I hate brandy...it stinks of modern literature.Collection: Hate
I know the place. It is true. Everything we do Corrects the space Between death and me And you.Collection: Space
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.Collection: Writing
The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law.Collection: Law
I thought the plays would speak for themselves. But they didn't.Collection: Play
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.Collection: Running
I know little of women. But I've heard dread tales.Collection: Women
Referees are the law. They have a whistle. They blow it. And that whistle is the articulation of God's justice.Collection: Blow
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 audiencesI 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.Collection: Mistake
I can't really articulate what I feel.Collection: Feelings
I don't write with any audience in mind. I just write. I take a chance on the audience. That's what I did originally, and I think it's worked--in the sense that I find there is an audience.Collection: Writing
It’s very difficult to feel contempt for others when you see yourself in the mirror.Collection: Mirrors
Rationality went down the drain donkey's years ago and hasn't been seen since.Collection: Years
I no longer feel banished from myself.Collection: Feels
I would never use obscene language in the office. Certainly not. I kept my obscene language for the home, where it belongs.Collection: Home
The weasel under the cocktail cabinet.Collection: Funny
I believe the US is a truly monstrous force in the world, now off the leash for obvious reasons.Collection: Believe
Nothing is more sterile or lamentable than the man content to live within himself.Collection: Men
Isn't it true that every aristocrat wants to die?Collection: Class
I mean, if a thing works, if a thing is right, respect that, acknowledge it, respect it and hold to it.Collection: Respect
I saw Len Hutton in his prime, Another time, another time.Collection: Saws
I sometimes wish desperately that I could write like someone else, be someone else. No one particularly. Just if I could put the pen down on paper and suddenly come out in a totally different way.Collection: Writing
I'm not committed as a writer, in the usual sense of the term, either religiously or politically. And I'm not conscious of any particular social function. I write because I want to write. I don't see any placards on myself, and I don't carry any banners.Collection: Writing