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.

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.

Occasionally it does hit me, the words on a page. And I still love doing that, as I have for the last 60 years.

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.

When you lead a life of scholarship you can't be bothered with the humorous realities, you know, tits, that kind of thing.

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

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.