It's so easy for propaganda to work, and dissent to be mocked.

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.

I ought not to speak about the dead because the dead are all over the place.

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

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.

Don't forget the earth's about five thousand million years old, at least. Who can afford to live in the past?

The crimes of the U.S. throughout the world have been systematic, constant, clinical, remorseless, and fully documented but nobody talks about them.