Quotes from Harold Pinter

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

Quite simply, my writing life has been one of relish, challenge, excitement.

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

A character on stage who can present no convincing argument or information as to his past experience, his present behaviour or his aspirations, nor give a comprehensive analysis of his motives, is as legitimate and as worthy of attention as one who, alarmingly, can do all these things.

There was one man in the Labour government, Robin Cook, whom I had a very high regard for. He had the courage to speak out and to resign over Iraq. He was an admirable man. But resignation over a matter of principle is not a very fashionable thing in our society.

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

There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false. I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?

EMMA It was never intended to be the same kind of home. Was it? Pause. You didn't ever see it as a home, in any sense, did you? JERRY No, I saw it as a flat . . . you know. EMMA For fucking. JERRY No, for loving. EMMA Well, there's not much of that left, is there? Silence. JERRY I don't think we don't love each other. Pause. EMMA

So often, below the word spoken, is the thing known and unspoken. My characters tell me so much and no more… most of the time we're inexpressive, giving little away, unreliable, elusive, evasive, obstructive, unwilling. But it's out of these attributes that a language arises. A language, I repeat, where under what is said, another thing is being said.

GOLDBERG. Of course, now. Time's getting on. Round the corner, remember? Mention my name.

Intellectual arses wobble the best.

Philosophy is a process of inquiry only. It doesn't attempt to find specific answers to specific questions.

When we look into a mirror we think the image that confronts us is accurate. But move a millimetre and the image changes. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror – for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us.

Sometimes I think I have always been sitting like this. I sometimes think I have always been sitting like this, alone by an indifferent fire, curtains closed, night, winter.

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

EMMA: You know what I found out ... last night? He's betrayed me for years. He's had... other women for years. JERRY No? Good Lord. (Pause) But we betrayed him for years. EMMA And he betrayed me for years. JERRY Well I never knew that. EMMA Nor did I.

And there she was, very dim, very still, placed more or less I would say at the dead centre of the auditorium. I was off centre and have remained so.

did you think of her as your best friend? -she was my only friend. -your best and only. -my one and only. if you have only one of something you can't say it's the best of anything.

Look what I'm lumbered with. One load of cast-iron crap after another. --Harold Pinter: The Homecoming.

There never is any such thing as one truth to be found in dramatic art, there are many. These truths challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect each other, ignore each other, tease each other, are blind to each other. Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost.

Petey: It was good, eh? [Pause.] Meg: I was the belle of the ball. Petey: Were you? Meg: Oh yes. They all said I was. Petey: I bet you were, too. Meg: Oh, it's true. I was. [Pause.] I know I was. [Curtain]

It was all go at that time. Love, football, the arts, the occasional pint. Mind you, I preferred a fruity white wine but you couldn't actually say that in those days.

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.

As far as I'm concerned, 'The Caretaker' is funny up to a point. Beyond that, it ceases to be funny, and it was because of that point that I wrote it.