Harold Pinter Quotes about Writing

Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.

Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.

Writing, Literature, Life Worth Living

I don't give a damn what other people think. It's entirely their own business. I'm not writing for other people.

Writing, Thinking, People

Harold Pinter, Mel Gussow (1996). “Conversations with Pinter”, p.20, Grove Press

The theater's much the most difficult kind of writing for me, the most naked kind, you're so entirely restricted.... I find myself stuck with these characters who are either sitting or standing, and they've either got to walk out of a door, or come in through a door, and that's about all they can do.

Harold Pinter

Writing, Character, Doors

Watching first nights, though I've seen quite a few by now, is never any better. It's a nerve-racking experience. It's not a question of whether the play goes well or badly. It's not the audience reaction, it's my reaction. I'm rather hostile toward audiencesI don't much care for large bodies of people collected together. Everyone knows that audiences vary enormously; it's a mistake to care too much about them. The thing one should be concerned with is whether the performance has expressed what one set out to express in writing the play. It sometimes does.

Harold Pinter

Mistake, Writing, Night

I don't write with any audience in mind. I just write. I take a chance on the audience. That's what I did originally, and I think it's worked--in the sense that I find there is an audience.

Harold Pinter

Writing, Thinking, Mind

Harold Pinter (1977). “Plays [of] Harold Pinter”, Methuen

I sometimes wish desperately that I could write like someone else, be someone else. No one particularly. Just if I could put the pen down on paper and suddenly come out in a totally different way.

Harold Pinter

Writing, Wish, Different

Harold Pinter, Mel Gussow (1996). “Conversations with Pinter”, p.24, Grove Press

I'm not committed as a writer, in the usual sense of the term, either religiously or politically. And I'm not conscious of any particular social function. I write because I want to write. I don't see any placards on myself, and I don't carry any banners.

Harold Pinter

Writing, Usual, Want

Harold Pinter (1977). “Plays: two”