Quotes from David Hare

I think the novel is the American form because people read it in private, and the only valuable things that happen in America happen in private life, because public life is a dead loss.

Via Dolorosa is the only thing I have ever acted in my life, professionally, and Ill never act again.

The most important playwright's gift is to hit your time and speak to your time.

Some people carry their heart in their head and some carry their head in their heart. The trick is to keep them apart yet working together.

I actually think love changes everything. I think it's the only thing worth having.

I believe love opens people up.

In those days, the early 1980s, TV and film were interchangeable.

Purity is the feminine, truth the masculine of honor.

The ultimate tendency of civilization is towards barbarism.

When they speak, dead frogs fall out of their mouths.

As human beings, we are all not conducting just one narrative but many narratives all at the same time.

Nothing is further than earth from heaven, and nothing is nearer than heaven to earth.

Surely our job while we're here on Earth is to learn about the world, not to create parallel universes.

In oratory the will must predominate.

I'm vey bad at marshaling arguments. I can't, at a dinner party, explain why I'm a socialist and why others should be socialists as well.

Style is the art of getting yourself out of the way, not putting yourself in it.

An inability to handle language is not the same thing as stupidity.

The actual business of writing dialogue is not thought of as a craft.

The act of writing is the act of discovering what you believe.

You make love like a wounded panther. You are like a paintshop on fire.

If you like judging, please: be a lawyer. Run a dog show. There's a whole lot of jobs if judging is your passion in life. But take my advice: if you want to be happy, keep your judging professional. And don't start putting in practice at home.

I had a couple of restaurants, nothing too grand. But I'd already worked out – I'm not an idiot – you either run money or else it runs you. If you keep your money … if you're frightened to spend it, you become its prisoner. OK, sure, when you're making it, be as mean as you like. But when you spend it, just give. Give. Show your contempt for it.

I love you, for God's sake. I still love you. I loved you more than anyone on earth. But I'll never trust you, after what happened. It's what Alice said. You'll never grow up. There is no peace in you.

On September 11th, America changed. Yes. It got much stupider.