Harold Pinter > Quotes

“One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.”
― Harold Pinter, Various Voices: Prose, Poetry, Politics

“There are some things one remembers even though they may never have happened.”
― Harold Pinter, Old Times

“I hate brandy...it stinks of modern literature.”
― Harold Pinter, Betrayal

“I know the place

I know the place.
It is true.
Everything we do
Corrects the space
Between death and me
And you.”
― Harold Pinter

“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.”
― 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

“It’s very difficult to feel contempt for others when you see yourself in the mirror.”
― Harold Pinter

“JERRY: Look at the way you're looking at me. I can't wait for you. I'm bowled over, I'm totally knocked out, you dazzle me, you jewel, my jewel, I can't ever sleep again, no, listen, it's the truth, I won't walk, I'll be a cripple, I'll descend, I'll diminish, into total paralysis, my life is in your hands, that's what you're banishing me to, a state of catatonia, do you know the state of catatonia? do you? do you? the state of...where the reigning prince is the prince of emptiness, the prince of absence, the prince of desolation. I love you.
EMMA: My husband is at the other side of that door.
JERRY: Everyone knows. The world knows. It knows. But they'll never know, they'll never know, they're in a different world. I adore you. I'm madly in love with you. I can't believe that what anyone is at this moment saying has ever happened has ever happened. Nothing has ever happened. Nothing. Your eyes kill me. I'm lost. You're wonderful.”
― Harold Pinter, Betrayal

“I can't really articulate what I feel,”
― Harold Pinter

“You wouldn't understand my works. You wouldn't have the faintest idea of what they were about. You wouldn't appreciate the points of reference. You're way behind. All of you. There's no point in sending you my works. You'd be lost. It's nothing to do with a question of intelligence. It's a way of being able to look at the world. It's a question of how far you can operate on things and not in things. I mean it's a question of your capacity to ally the two, to relate the two, to balance the two. To see, to be able to see! I'm the one who can see. That's why I can write my critical works. Might do you good...have a look at them...see how certain people can view...things...how certain people can maintain...intellectual equilibrium. Intellectual equilibrium. You're just objects. You just...move about. I can observe it. I can see what you do. It's the same as I do. But you're lost in it. You won't get me being...I won't be lost in it.”
― Harold Pinter, The Homecoming

“There are places in my heart...where no living soul...has...or can ever...trespass.”
― Harold Pinter, No Man's Land

“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

“Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.”
― Harold Pinter

“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

“When you lead a life of scholarship you can't be bothered with the humorous realities, you know, tits, that kind of thing.”
― Harold Pinter, Ashes to Ashes

“The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember.”
― Harold Pinter

“The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of
blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute
contempt for the concept of international law.”
― Harold Pinter

“What sound was that?

I turn away, into the shaking room.
What was that sound that came in on the dark?
What is this maze of light it leaves us in?
What is this stance we take,
To turn away and then turn back?
What did we hear?

It was the breath we took when we first met.

Listen. It is here.”
― Harold Pinter

“Listen. You know what it's like when you're in a room with the light on and then suddenly the light goes out? I'll show you. It's like this."
He turns out the light.
BLACKOUT”
― Harold Pinter, No Man's Land

“The majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lies. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.”
― Harold Pinter, Art, Truth & Politics: The Nobel Lecture

“EMMA: We’re lovers.
ROBERT: Ah, yes. I thought it might be something like that. Something along those lines.
EMMA: When?
ROBERT: What?
EMMA: When did you think?
ROBERT: Yesterday. Only yesterday. When I saw his handwriting on the letter. Before yesterday I was quite ignorant.
EMMA: Ah. (pause) I’m sorry.
ROBERT: Sorry? (silence) How long?
EMMA: Some time.
ROBERT: Yes, but how long exactly?
EMMA: Five years.
ROBERT: Five years?”
― Harold Pinter, Betrayal

“You are in no man's land. Which never moves, which never changes, which never grows older, but remains forever, icy and silent.”
― Harold Pinter, No Man's Land

“what are you but a corpse waiting to be washed?”
― Harold Pinter, The Birthday Party

“JERRY: I was best man at your wedding. I saw you in white. I watched you glide by in white.
EMMA: I wasn’t in white.
JERRY: You know what should have happened?
EMMA: What?
JERRY: I should have had you, in your white, before the wedding. I should have blackened you, in your white wedding dress, blackened you in your bridal dress, before ushering you into your wedding, as your best man.”
― Harold Pinter, Betrayal

“إنني أكره البراندي .. له طعم الأدب الحديث البغيض”
― Harold Pinter

“But death permits you
To arrange your hours
While he sucks the honey
From your lovely flowers”
― Harold Pinter

“If you have only one of something you can’t say it’s the best of anything.”
― Harold Pinter, Old Times

“RUTH: If you take the glass…I’ll take you.”
― Harold Pinter, The Homecoming

“Stan, don't let them tell you what to do!”
― Harold Pinter, The Birthday Party

“I can’t believe that what anyone is at this moment saying has ever happened has never happened. Nothing has ever happened. Nothing. This is the only thing that has ever happened.”
― Harold Pinter