"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."

"There are some good rules and there are some lousy rules."

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

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

"If Milosevic is to be tried, he has to be tried by a proper court, an impartial, properly constituted court which has international respect."

"I was brought up in the War. I was an adolescent in the Second World War. And I did witness in London a great deal of the Blitz."

"This particular nurse said, Cancer cells are those which have forgotten how to die. I was so struck by this statement."

"One way of looking at speech is to say it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness."

"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 think it is the responsibility of a citizen of any country to say what he thinks."

"The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember."

"Clinton's hands remain incredibly clean, don't they, and Tony Blair's smile remains as wide as ever. I view these guises with profound contempt."

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

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

"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."

"Beckett had an unerring light on things, which I much appreciated."

"Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living."

"All that happens is that the destruction of human beings - unless they're Americans - is called collateral damage."

"A short piece of work means as much to me as a long piece of work."

"There is a movement to get an international criminal court in the world, voted for by hundreds of states-but with the noticeable absence of the United States of America."

"There's a tradition in British intellectual life of mocking any non-political force that gets involved in politics, especially within the sphere of the arts and the theatre."

"Most of the press is in league with government, or with the status quo."

"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."

"While The United States is the most powerful nation the world has ever seen, it is also the most detested nation that the world has ever known."

"I tend to think that cricket is the greatest thing that God ever created on earth - certainly greater than sex, although sex isn't too bad either."

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

"One's life has many compartments."

"It was difficult being a conscientious objector in the 1940's, but I felt I had to stick to my guns."

"I think that NATO is itself a war criminal."

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

"I believe an international criminal court is very much to be desired."

"I don't think there's been any writer like Samuel Beckett. He's unique. He was a most charming man and I used to send him my plays."

"I could be a bit of a pain in the arse. Since I've come out of my cancer, I must say I intend to be even more of a pain in the arse."

"The Room I wrote in 1957, and I was really gratified to find that it stood up. I didn't have to change a word."

"I also found being called Sir rather silly."