Harold Pinter quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Harold Pinter on Wise Famous Quotes.

Most of the press is in league with government, or with the status quo.

I don't intend to simply go away and write my plays and be a good boy. I intend to remain an independent and political intelligence in my own right.

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

While The United States is the most powerful nation the world has ever seen, it is also the most detested nation that the world has ever known.

I also found being called Sir rather silly.

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.

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

If Milosevic is to be tried, he has to be tried by a proper court, an impartial, properly constituted court which has international respect.

A short piece of work means as much to me as a long piece of work.

I think that NATO is itself a war criminal.

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

I could be a bit of a pain in the arse. Since I've come out of my cancer, I must say I intend to be even more of a pain in the arse.

I never think of myself as wise. I think of myself as possessing a critical intelligence which I intend to allow to operate.

The weasel under the cocktail cabinet.

Rationality went down the drain donkey's years ago and hasn't been seen since.

One is and is not in the centre of the maelstrom of it all.

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

How can the unknown merit reverence?

I ought not to speak about the dead because the dead are all over the place.

I mean, if a thing works, if a thing is right, respect that, acknowledge it, respect it and hold to it.

I would never use obscene language in the office. Certainly not. I kept my obscene language for the home, where it belongs.

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

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

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

Beckett had an unerring light on things, which I much appreciated.

I believe the US is a truly monstrous force in the world, now off the leash for obvious reasons.

I mean, don't forget the earth's about five thousand million years old, at least. Who can afford to live in the past?

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

There are some things one remembers even though they may never have happened.

Apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?

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

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.

There are some good rules and there are some lousy rules.

Occasionally it does hit me, the words on a page. And I still love doing that, as I have for the last 60 years.

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

The Room I wrote in 1957, and I was really gratified to find that it stood up. I didn't have to change a word.

I can't really articulate what I feel,

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

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.

Isn't it true that every aristocrat wants to die?

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

I believe an international criminal court is very much to be desired.

The crimes of the U.S. throughout the world have been systematic, constant, clinical, remorseless, and fully documented but nobody talks about them.

The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember.

Language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you ... at any time.

I saw Len Hutton in his prime, Another time, another time.

You are in no man's land. Which never moves, which never changes, which never grows older, but remains forever, icy and silent.

It was difficult being a conscientious objector in the 1940's, but I felt I had to stick to my guns.

The more acute the experience, the less articulate its expression.

The Companion of Honour I regarded as an award from the country for 50 years of work - which I thought was okay.

It's so easy for propaganda to work, and dissent to be mocked.

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.

I no longer feel banished from myself.

One's life has many compartments.

When you lead a life of scholarship you can't be bothered with the humorous realities, you know, tits, that kind of thing.

Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.

One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.

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

There are places in my heart ... where no living soul ... has ... or can ever ... trespass.