- Nov 07, 2020
Harold Pinter Quotes
Most Famous Harold Pinter Quotes of All Time!
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- Last Updated on May 30, 2021
- Day
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Love
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- Nov 07, 2020
Occasionally it does hit me, the words on a page. And I still love doing that, as I have for the last 60 years.
- Many
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- Nov 07, 2020
One's life has many compartments.
- Country
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- Nov 07, 2020
The Companion of Honour I regarded as an award from the country for 50 years of work - which I thought was okay.
- Find
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Hard
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Lousy
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- Nov 07, 2020
There are some good rules and there are some lousy rules.
- America
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Life
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Forgotten
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- Nov 07, 2020
This particular nurse said, Cancer cells are those which have forgotten how to die. I was so struck by this statement.
- Most
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Just
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- Nov 07, 2020
Iraq is just a symbol of the attitude of western democracies to the rest of the world.
- Difficult
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- Nov 07, 2020
It was difficult being a conscientious objector in the 1940's, but I felt I had to stick to my guns.
- Nov 07, 2020
The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember.
- Live
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- Nov 07, 2020
I mean, don't forget the earth's about five thousand million years old, at least. Who can afford to live in the past?
- Earth
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Doing
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Me
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- Nov 07, 2020
I left school at sixteen - I was fed up and restless. The only thing that interested me at school was English language and literature, but I didn't have Latin, and so couldn't go on to university. So I went to a few drama schools, not studying seriously; I was mostly in love at the time and tied up with that.
- Mean
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- Nov 07, 2020
I've never been able to understand what they mean by 'Pinteresque,'. I'm sure it's indefinable.
- Mind
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- Nov 07, 2020
Analysis I take to be a scientific procedure. What I do is creative. It doesn't spring from the same part of the mind.
- Day
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- Nov 07, 2020
I was told that, when 'Betrayal' was being produced by one of the provincial companies in England, the two actors playing those roles actually went into a pub one day and played that scene as if it were really happening to them. The people around them became very uncomfortable.
- Life
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think plays have nothing to do with one's own personal life. Not in my experience, anyway. The stuff of drama has to do, not with your subject matter, anyway, but with how you treat it. Drama includes pain, loss, regret - that's what drama is about!
- Morning
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- Nov 07, 2020
I used to get up at five in the morning and play cricket.
- Cricket
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- Nov 07, 2020
Cricket, the whole thing, playing, watching, being part of the Gaieties, has been a central feature of my life.
- Only
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- Nov 07, 2020
The only theatre I ever saw was Shakespeare.
- Friends
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Home
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- Nov 07, 2020
My father was a tailor. He worked from seven o'clock in the morning until seven at night. At least when he got home, my mother always cooked him a very good dinner. Lots of potatoes, I remember; he used to knock them down like a dose of salts. He needed it, after a 12-hour day.
- Others
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- Nov 07, 2020
All I can say is that I did admire 'The Lives of Others', which I thought was really about something and beautifully done.
- Mind
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- Nov 07, 2020
George W. Bush is always protesting that he has the fate of the world in mind and bangs on about the 'freedom-loving peoples' he's seeking to protect. I'd love to meet a freedom-hating people.
- Never
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Different Kinds
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- Nov 07, 2020
All I'm saying is that there are many different kinds of political theatre and many plays I greatly admire: 'Antigone,' 'Mother Courage,' 'All My Sons.' But, if I tackle a political theme, I have to do it in my own way.
- Moment
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- Nov 07, 2020
Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost.
- Must
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Believe
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- Nov 07, 2020
I am absolutely not saying that Milosevic might not be responsible for all sorts of atrocities, but I believe that what's been left out of public debate and the press is that there was a civil war going on there.
- Every Day
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- Nov 07, 2020
I find the whole Blairish idea more and more repugnant every day. 'New Labour': the term itself is so trashy. Kind of ersatz.
- Man
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- Nov 07, 2020
Only by the sweat of my own brow. I am a totally working man.
- Feel
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- Nov 07, 2020
I certainly feel sad about the alienation from my son.
- Most
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- Nov 07, 2020
I don't idealise women. I enjoy them. I have been married to two of the most independent women it is possible to think of.
- Ghraib
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- Nov 07, 2020
Things like Abu Ghraib and even Guantanamo are not new things: there are many precedents.
- Government
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Enough
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- Nov 07, 2020
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I've written 29 damn plays. Isn't that enough?
- My Own
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- Nov 07, 2020
I don't make judgments about my own work, and I don't analyze it; I just let it happen. That applies to everything I've done.
- Great
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- Nov 07, 2020
I do tend to think that I've written a great deal out of my unconscious because half the time I don't know what a given character is going to say next.
- Harold
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- Nov 07, 2020
I'm always the interrogator. When I was an actor in rep, I always played sinister parts. The directors always said, 'If there's a nasty man about, cast Harold Pinter.'
- Government
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- Nov 07, 2020
The whole brunt of the media and the government is to encourage people to be highly competitive and totally selfish and uncaring of others.
- Depleted
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- Nov 07, 2020
The effect of depleted uranium, used by America in the Gulf War, is never referred to.
- Happy
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- Nov 07, 2020
I'll tell you something, and this is true: I've never been able to write a film which I didn't respect. I just can't do it. I'm very happy about all the films I haven't done.
- Happens
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- Nov 07, 2020
It's such a delicate business, the structure of film, isn't it? What happens if a scene is not there but two minutes later? It's an eternal, never-ending search, actually, which is very exciting. It really is.
- Me
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- Nov 07, 2020
No one wanted me to be a conscientious objector. My parents certainly didn't want it. My teacher and mentor, Joe Brearley, didn't want it. My friends didn't want it. I was alone.
- Good
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- Nov 07, 2020
You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good.
- Helpless
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- Nov 07, 2020
Many Americans, we know, are horrified by the posture of their government but seem to be helpless.
- Character
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Like
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Excitement
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- Nov 07, 2020
Quite simply, my writing life has been one of relish, challenge, excitement.
- Beyond
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Been
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- Nov 07, 2020
The crimes of the U.S. throughout the world have been systematic, constant, clinical, remorseless, and fully documented but nobody talks about them.
- Else
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- Nov 07, 2020
Apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?
- Good
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- Nov 07, 2020
Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.
- Destruction
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- Nov 07, 2020
All that happens is that the destruction of human beings - unless they're Americans - is called collateral damage.
- Hands
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Nov 07, 2020
I also found being called Sir rather silly.
- Must
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Good
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Man
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Accept
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Myself
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- Nov 07, 2020
I never think of myself as wise. I think of myself as possessing a critical intelligence which I intend to allow to operate.
- NATO
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- Nov 07, 2020