Quotes from Harold Pinter

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

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.

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.

The only theatre I ever saw was Shakespeare.

All I can say is that I did admire 'The Lives of Others', which I thought was really about something and beautifully done.

I wrote 'The Room', 'The Birthday Party', and 'The Dumb Waiter' in 1957, I was acting all the time in a repertory company, doing all kinds of jobs, traveling to Bournemouth and Torquay and Birmingham.

I always start a play by calling the characters A, B, and C.

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

A few friends and me used to go and watch Bunuel, Carne, Cocteau... Cocteau and Bunuel were surrealism. And I was very excited by that. 'Un Chien Andalou', especially.

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

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

In other words apart from the known and the unknown what else is there?

Be careful how you talk about God. He's the only God we have. If you let him go he won't come back. He won't even look back over his shoulder. And then what will you do?

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.

The weasel under the cocktail cabinet.

I found the offer of a knighthood something that I couldn't possibly accept. I found it to be somehow squalid, a knighthood. There's a relationship to government about knights.

One should also remember that the U.S. is the biggest exporter of torture weapons in the world, though the U.K. is not far behind in the league table. We never stopped, even under Robin Cook's supposedly ethical foreign policy.

Many Americans, we know, are horrified by the posture of their government but seem to be helpless.

I used to get up at five in the morning and play cricket.

Drama happens in big cricket matches. But also in small cricket matches.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I've written 29 damn plays. Isn't that enough?

I'm well aware that I have been described in some quarters as being 'enigmatic, taciturn, prickly, explosive and forbidding'. Well, I have my moods like anyone else; I won't deny it.

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

Political theatre presents an entirely different set of problems. Sermonising has to be avoided at all cost. Objectivity is essential. The characters must be allowed to breathe their own air. The author cannot confine and constrict them to satisfy his own taste or disposition or prejudice.