Harold Pinter

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Most of the press is in league with government, or with the status quo.”

“Iraq is just a symbol of the attitude of western democracies to the rest of the world.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”