Matthew C. > Matthew's Quotes

“I'm not young enough to know everything.”
― J.M. Barrie, The Admirable Crichton

“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

“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

“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

“The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of
blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute
contempt for the concept of international law.”
― Harold Pinter

“You wouldn't understand my works. You wouldn't have the faintest idea of what they were about. You wouldn't appreciate the points of reference. You're way behind. All of you. There's no point in sending you my works. You'd be lost. It's nothing to do with a question of intelligence. It's a way of being able to look at the world. It's a question of how far you can operate on things and not in things. I mean it's a question of your capacity to ally the two, to relate the two, to balance the two. To see, to be able to see! I'm the one who can see. That's why I can write my critical works. Might do you good...have a look at them...see how certain people can view...things...how certain people can maintain...intellectual equilibrium. Intellectual equilibrium. You're just objects. You just...move about. I can observe it. I can see what you do. It's the same as I do. But you're lost in it. You won't get me being...I won't be lost in it.”
― Harold Pinter, The Homecoming

“JERRY: Look at the way you're looking at me. I can't wait for you. I'm bowled over, I'm totally knocked out, you dazzle me, you jewel, my jewel, I can't ever sleep again, no, listen, it's the truth, I won't walk, I'll be a cripple, I'll descend, I'll diminish, into total paralysis, my life is in your hands, that's what you're banishing me to, a state of catatonia, do you know the state of catatonia? do you? do you? the state of...where the reigning prince is the prince of emptiness, the prince of absence, the prince of desolation. I love you.
EMMA: My husband is at the other side of that door.
JERRY: Everyone knows. The world knows. It knows. But they'll never know, they'll never know, they're in a different world. I adore you. I'm madly in love with you. I can't believe that what anyone is at this moment saying has ever happened has ever happened. Nothing has ever happened. Nothing. Your eyes kill me. I'm lost. You're wonderful.”
― Harold Pinter, Betrayal

“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

“I'll tell you what I really think about politicians. The other night I watched some politicians on television talking about Vietnam. I wanted very much to burst through the screen with a flame thrower and burn their eyes out and their balls off and then inquire from them how they would assess the action from a political point of view.”
― Harold Pinter

“I know the place

I know the place.
It is true.
Everything we do
Corrects the space
Between death and me
And you.”
― Harold Pinter

“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

“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
― Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
― Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs of the life & writings of Benjamin Franklin

“Fear not death for the sooner we die, the longer we shall be immortal.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

[misquote of a letter about wine, see quotes/831031]”
― Benjamin Franklin

“I didn't fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Never ruin an apology with an excuse.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Many people die at twenty five and aren't buried until they are seventy five.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, His precepts!”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“There was never a bad peace or a good war.”
― Ben Franklin