Quotes from Harold Pinter

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

I don't think we don't love each other.

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

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

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.

I said to this monk… I heard you got a stock of shoes here. Piss off, he said to me.

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

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

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

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 think we communicate only too well, in our silence, in what is unsaid, and that what takes place is a continual evasion, desperate rearguard attempts to keep ourselves to ourselves. Communication is too alarming. To enter into someone else's life is too frightening. To disclose to others the poverty within us is too fearsome a possibility.

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

I can't really articulate what I feel

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

Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.

The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, and anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in its true place. When true silence falls we are left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.

I'll tell you what I really think about politicians. The other night I watched some politicians on television talking about Vietnam. I wanted very much to burst through the screen with a flame thrower and burn their eyes out and their balls off and then inquire from them how they would assess the action from a political point of view.

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

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

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

What sound was that? I turn away, into the shaking room. What was that sound that came in on the dark? What is this maze of light it leaves us in? What is this stance we take, To turn away and then turn back? What did we hear? It was the breath we took when we first met. Listen. It is here.

Listen. You know what it's like when you're in a room with the light on and then suddenly the light goes out? I'll show you. It's like this." He turns out the light. BLACKOUT

EMMA: We're lovers. ROBERT: Ah, yes. I thought it might be something like that. Something along those lines. EMMA: When? ROBERT: What? EMMA: When did you think? ROBERT: Yesterday. Only yesterday. When I saw his handwriting on the letter. Before yesterday I was quite ignorant. EMMA: Ah. (pause) I'm sorry. ROBERT: Sorry? (silence) How long? EMMA: Some time. ROBERT: Yes, but how long exactly? EMMA: Five years. ROBERT: Five years?

The majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lies. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.