Harold Pinter

"Iraq is just a symbol of the attitude of western democracies to the rest of the world."

"My second play, The Birthday Party, I wrote in 1958 - or 1957. It was totally destroyed by the critics of the day, who called it an absolute load of rubbish."

"I found the offer of a knighthood something that I couldn't possibly accept. I found it to be somehow squalid, a knighthood. There's a relationship to government about knights."

"Most of the press is in league with government, or with the status quo."

"I never think of myself as wise. I think of myself as possessing a critical intelligence which I intend to allow to operate."

"I don't intend to simply go away and write my plays and be a good boy. I intend to remain an independent and political intelligence in my own right."