HAROLD PINTER (1930 –2008) WAS AN INFLUENTIAL MODERN ENGLISH PLAYWRIGHT AND THE 2005 NOBEL LAUREATE FOR LITERATURE.
“One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.”
“There are some things one remembers even though they may never have happened.”
“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.”
“There are places in my heart...where no living soul...has...or can ever...trespass.”
“When you lead a life of scholarship you can't be bothered with the humorous realities, you know, tits, that kind of thing.”
“Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost.”
“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.”
“You are in no man's land. Which never moves, which never changes, which never grows older, but remains forever, icy and silent.”
“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.”
“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.”
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.
“EMMA It was never intended to be the same kind of home. Was it? Pause. You didn’t ever see it as a home, in any sense, did you? JERRY No, I saw it as a flat . . . you know. EMMA For fucking. JERRY No, for loving. EMMA Well, there’s not much of that left, is there? Silence. JERRY I don’t think we don’t love each other. Pause. EMMA”
"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."
“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”
“But death permits you
To arrange your hours
While he sucks the honey
From your lovely flowers”
“The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember.”
“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
“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, Art, Truth & Politics, The Nobel Lecture
“There are places in my heart...where no living soul...has...or can ever...trespass.”
~ Harold Pinter, No Man's Land
“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
“Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost.”
~ Harold Pinter, Various Voices: Sixty Years of Prose, Poetry, Politics, 1948-2008
“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, Various Voices: Sixty Years of Prose, Poetry, Politics, 1948-2008
“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
“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, Writing for the Theatre (1962)
“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
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, Various Voices: Sixty Years of Prose, Poetry, Politics, 1948-2008
“EMMA It was never intended to be the same kind of home. Was it? Pause. You didn’t ever see it as a home, in any sense, did you? JERRY No, I saw it as a flat . . . you know. EMMA For fucking. JERRY No, for loving. EMMA Well, there’s not much of that left, is there? Silence. JERRY I don’t think we don’t love each other. Pause. EMMA”
~ Harold Pinter, Betrayal
"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)
“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
“But death permits you
To arrange your hours
While he sucks the honey
From your lovely flowers”
~ Harold Pinter, Death May Be Ageing
“The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember.”
~ Harold Pinter
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