Harold Pinter's Quotes

I think that NATO is itself a war criminal.

I was brought up in the War. I was an adolescent in the Second World War. And I did witness in London a great deal of the Blitz.

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

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

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

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

One's life has many compartments.

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

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

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 are some good rules and there are some lousy rules.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

This particular nurse said, Cancer cells are those which have forgotten how to die. I was so struck by this statement.

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.

A short piece of work means as much to me as a long piece of work.

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.

Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.