Quotes By Harold Pinter

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

My second play, The Birthday Party, I wrote in 1958 - or 1957. It was totally destroyed by the critics of the day, who called it an absolute load of rubbish.

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 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.

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

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

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

Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

There's a tradition in British intellectual life of mocking any non-political force that gets involved in politics, especially within the sphere of the arts and the theatre.

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.

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.

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 also found being called Sir rather silly.

One's life has many compartments.

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.