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

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

„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)

„The atrocity in New York was predictable and inevitable. It was an act of retaliation against constant and systematic manifestations of state terrorism on the part of the United States over many years, in all parts of the world.
I believe that it will do this not only to take control of Iraqi oil, but also because the American administration is now a blood-thirsty wild animal.“

—  Harold Pinter

Referring to the 9/11 attacks, in "The American administration is a bloodthirsty wild animal" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2002/12/11/do1101.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2002/12/11/ixopinion.html, The Telegraph (12 November 2002), published version of speech made upon accepting an honorary doctorate from University of Turin in 2002.

„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

„Sandinistas are a democratically elected government which originally led a popular revolution to overthrow a dictatorship based on slavery…
US foreign policy could be best defined as follows: kiss my arse or I'll kick your head in. It is as simple and as crude as that. It can hardly be said to be a complicated foreign policy. What is interesting about it is that it is so incredibly successful. It possesses the structures of disinformation, use of rhetoric, distortion of language, which are very persuasive, but are actually a pack of lies. It is very successful propaganda. They have the money, they have the technology, they have all the means to get away with it, and they do. I find the ignorance in this country, Britain, and certainly the US, really quite deep. It is not only the Republican Party and government in the US which are responsible for this state of affairs, but I see the Democrats as only differing by degrees. While they say "no more military aid to the Contras"… they are still referring to an innate and deeply embedded assumption that they are talking about a Marxist-Leninist totalitarian dictatorship; gangsters, thugs, instructed from Moscow.“

—  Harold Pinter

Quoted in an interview http://www.haroldpinter.org/politics/politics_america.shtml, conducted by Andrew Graham-Yooll, South Magazine (May 1988)

„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).

„Each play was, for me, 'a different kind of failure.' And that fact, I suppose, sent me on to write the next one.“

—  Harold Pinter

15
Writing for the Theatre (1962)

„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)