Harold Pinter: Believer

“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).

Law

“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)

Truth , Hope , Thinking , Change

“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).

“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)

God

“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.

World , Animals , Parting

“We have heard many times that tired, grimy phrase: 'Failure of communication…' and this phrase has been fixed to my work quite consistently. I believe the contrary. I think that we communicate only too well, in our silence, in what is unsaid, and that what takes place is a continual evasion, desperate rear-guard attempts to keep ourselves to ourselves. Communication is too alarming. To enter into someone else's life is too frightening. To disclose the poverty within us is too fearsome a possibility.”

Harold Pinter

15
Writing for the Theatre (1962)

Life , Communication , Failure , Thinking