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

Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.

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

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.

The Companion of Honour I regarded as an award from the country for 50 years of work - which I thought was okay.

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.

The weasel under the cocktail cabinet.