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.
— Harold Pinter
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.
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.
The effect of depleted uranium, used by America in the Gulf War, is never referred to.
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.
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.
I certainly feel sad about the alienation from my son.
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.
Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost.
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.
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.
Cricket, the whole thing, playing, watching, being part of the Gaieties, has been a central feature of my life.
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!
I've never been able to understand what they mean by 'Pinteresque,'. I'm sure it's indefinable.
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.
I mean, don't forget the earth's about five thousand million years old, at least. Who can afford to live in the past?
Iraq is just a symbol of the attitude of western democracies to the rest of the world.
Quite simply, my writing life has been one of relish, challenge, excitement.
Many Americans, we know, are horrified by the posture of their government but seem to be helpless.
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.
The whole brunt of the media and the government is to encourage people to be highly competitive and totally selfish and uncaring of others.
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.
Things like Abu Ghraib and even Guantanamo are not new things: there are many precedents.
Only by the sweat of my own brow. I am a totally working man.
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.
Truth in drama is forever elusive. You never quite find it, but the search for it is compulsive. The search is clearly what drives the endeavour. The search is your task.
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.
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.
Drama happens in big cricket matches. But also in small cricket matches.
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.
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.
My first play was 'The Room', written when I was twenty-seven.
The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember.
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'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.
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.
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.
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.'
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I've written 29 damn plays. Isn't that enough?
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.
I find the whole Blairish idea more and more repugnant every day. 'New Labour': the term itself is so trashy. Kind of ersatz.
I always start a play by calling the characters A, B, and C.
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.
All I can say is that I did admire 'The Lives of Others', which I thought was really about something and beautifully done.
The only theatre I ever saw was Shakespeare.
I used to get up at five in the morning and play cricket.
Analysis I take to be a scientific procedure. What I do is creative. It doesn't spring from the same part of the mind.
Quite often, I have a compelling sense of how a role should be played. And I'm proved - equally as often - quite wrong.
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.
