I ought not to speak about the dead because the dead are all over the place. Harold Pinter More Quotes by Harold Pinter More Quotes From Harold Pinter I think we communicate only too well, in our silence, in what is unsaid, and that what takes place is a continual evasion, desperate rearguard attempts to keep ourselves to ourselves. Communication is too alarming. To enter into someone else's life is too frightening. To disclose to others the poverty within us is too fearsome a possibility. Harold Pinter communication fear life There are some things one remembers even though they may never have happened. Harold Pinter truth may memories No matter how you look at it, all the emotions connected with love are not really immortal; like all other passions in life, they are bound to fade at some point. The trick is to convert love into some lasting friendship that overcomes the fading passion. Harold Pinter passion friendship life The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, and anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in its true place. When true silence falls we are left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness. Harold Pinter echoes silence fall When the storm is over and night falls and the moon is out in all its glory and all you're left with is the rhythm of the sea, of the waves, you know what God intended for the human race, you know what paradise is. Harold Pinter moon night fall The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember. Harold Pinter literature memories past Language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you ... at any time. Harold Pinter frozen giving art Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living. Harold Pinter life-worth-living literature writing I'll tell you what I really think about politicians. The other night I watched some politicians on television talking about Vietnam. I wanted very much to burst through the screen with a flame thrower and burn their eyes out and their balls off and then inquire from them how they would assess the action from a political point of view. Harold Pinter eye night thinking There never is any such thing as one truth to be found in dramatic art. There are many. These truths challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect each other, ignore each other, tease each other, are blind to each other. Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost. Harold Pinter challenges hands art A writer's life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don't have to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is stuck with it. But it is true to say that you are open to all the winds, some of them icy indeed. You are out on your own, out on a limb. You find no shelter, no protection - unless you lie - in which case of course you have constructed your own protection and, it could be argued, become a politician. Harold Pinter choices wind lying I suggest that US foreign policy can still be defined as "kiss my ass or I'll kick your head in." But of course it doesn't put it like that. It talks of "low intensity conflict..." What all this adds up to is a disease at the very centre of language, so that language becomes a permanent masquerade, a tapestry of lies. Harold Pinter kissing add lying Don't forget the earth's about five thousand million years old, at least. Who can afford to live in the past? Harold Pinter earth past years Do the structures of language and the structures of reality (by which I mean what actually happens) move along parallel lines? Does reality essentially remain outside language, separate, obdurate, alien, not susceptible to description? Is an accurate and vital correspondence between what is and our perception of it impossible? Or is it that we are obliged to use language only in order to obscure and distort reality -- to distort what happens -- because we fear it? Harold Pinter mean reality moving 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. Harold Pinter united-states powerful america 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. Harold Pinter cricket-match sex thinking I never think of myself as wise. I think of myself as possessing a critical intelligence which I intend to allow to operate. Harold Pinter literature wise thinking Apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there? Harold Pinter known logic philosophy The more acute the experience, the less articulate its expression. Harold Pinter theatre expression As a writer you're holding a dog. You let the dog run about. But you finally can pull him back. Finally, I'm in control. But the great excitement is to see what happens if you let the whole thing go. And the dog or the character really runs about, bites everyone in sight, jumps up trees, falls into lakes, gets wet, and you let that happen. That's the excitement of writing plays-to allow the thing to be free but still hold the final leash. Harold Pinter dog running fall
