Harold Pinter citáty

„Pravda je, že ve své zemi nejsem dvakrát populární. Samozřejmě, že je dost lidí, které mé názory dráždí. Na druhou stranu je také dost těch, kdo chápou, že mi přijde například groteskní, absurdní, když se britská či americké vláda snaží zaujímat morální postoje. Podle mého žádnou morální autoritu nemají.“

—  Harold Pinter

Zdroj: Harold Pinter na pwf.cz http://www.pwf.cz/archivy/texty/rozhovory/rozhovor-s-haroldem-pinterem_1260.html

„Pouze v jediném bodě jsou všichni lidé spokojeni - vystačí si se svým rozumem, bez ohledu na to, kolik ho mají.“

—  Harold Pinter

„Kritikové jsou jako jednonozí docenti přes skok do dálky.“

—  Harold Pinter

„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

Writing for the Theatre (1962)
Zdroj: Various Voices: Prose, Poetry, Politics
Kontext: 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. (14)

„I hate brandy… it stinks of modern literature.“

—  Harold Pinter, Betrayal

Zdroj: Betrayal

„There are some things one remembers even though they may never have happened.“

—  Harold Pinter, Old Times

Zdroj: Old Times

„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

11
Writing for the Theatre (1962)

„It’s very difficult to feel contempt for others when you see yourself in the mirror.“

—  Harold Pinter

„I can't really articulate what I feel“

—  Harold Pinter

„It's a strange moment, the moment of creating characters who up to that moment have had no existence. What follows is fitful, uncertain, even hallucinatory, although sometimes it can be an unstoppable avalanche. The author's position is an odd one. In a sense he is not welcomed by his characters. They resist him, they are not easy to live with.“

—  Harold Pinter

Art, Truth & Politics (2005)

„The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. 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. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.“

—  Harold Pinter

Art, Truth & Politics (2005)

„In Cuba I have always understood harsh treatment of dissenting voices as stemming from a "siege situation" imposed upon it from outside. And I believe that to a certain extent that is true.“

—  Harold Pinter

"Caribbean Cold War" http://www.redpepper.org.uk/latin/x-may96-pinter.htm, Red Pepper (May 1996).

„The U. S. is really beyond reason now. It is beyond our imagining to know what they are going to do next and what they are prepared to do. There is only one comparison: Nazi Germany… Nazi Germany wanted total domination of Europe and they nearly did it. The U. S. wants total domination of the world and is about to consolidate that…
Blair sees himself as a representative of moral rectitude. He is actually a mass murderer. But we forget that — we are as much victims of delusions as Americans are.“

—  Harold Pinter

Speech at the National Theatre in London made on 10 June 2003, as quoted by Angelique Chrisafis and Imogen Tilden, in "Pinter Blasts 'Nazi America' and 'deluded idiot' Blair" http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,975050,00.html, The Guardian (11 June 2003).

„The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading — as a last resort — all other justifications having failed to justify themselves — as liberation.“

—  Harold Pinter

Art, Truth & Politics (2005)

„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

Art, Truth & Politics (2005)

„But the real truth is that 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

Art, Truth & Politics (2005)

„I tend to believe that cricket is the greatest thing that God ever created on earth.“

—  Harold Pinter

Pinter on Pinter in The Observer (1980)

„The government of the US has no moral authority to elect itself as the judge over human rights in Cuba, where there has not been a single case of disappearance, torture or extra-judicial execution since 1959, and where despite the economic blockade, there are levels of health, education and culture that are internationally recognised.“

—  Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter, et al. "Letters: Human Rights and Cuba" http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,1445897,00.html, The Guardian (26 Mar. 2005). Pinter was a signatory.