Thursday, December 08, 2005

Harold Pinter, on literary creation

From the nobel prize acceptance speech of Harold Pinter:

"Most of the plays are engendered by a line, a word or an image. The given word is often shortly followed by the image. I shall give two examples of two lines which came right out of the blue into my head, followed by an image, followed by me."

"So language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you, the author, at any time."