Harold Pinter citáty

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

—  Harold Pinter

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

—  Harold Pinter

„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

„I can't really articulate what I feel“

—  Harold Pinter

„One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.“

—  Harold Pinter

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 believe his arrest and detention by the international criminal tribunal is unconstitutional, and goes against Yugoslav and international law. They have no right to try him.</blockquote“

—  Harold Pinter

On the arrest of Slobodan Milošević, as quoted by Fiachra Gibbons, in "Free Milosevic, says Pinter" http://www.guardian.co.uk/serbia/article/0,2479,527545,00.html, The Guardian (26 July 2001).

„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.

„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)

„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)

„When we look into a mirror we think the image that confronts us is accurate. But move a millimetre and the image changes. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror — for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us.
I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.
If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us — the dignity of man.“

—  Harold Pinter

Art, Truth & Politics (2005)

„I saw Len Hutton in his prime,
Another time, another time.“

—  Harold Pinter

Poem A Cricket Poem, quoted in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 2009, p. 1604

„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).

„So often, below the word spoken, is the thing known and unspoken. My characters tell me so much and no more, with reference to their experience, their aspirations, their motives, their history. Between my lack of biographical data about them and the ambiguity of what they say lies a territory which is not only worthy of exploration but which it is compulsory to explore.“

—  Harold Pinter

13
Writing for the Theatre (1962)

„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)