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

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.

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 are some good rules and there are some lousy rules.

One is and is not in the centre of the maelstrom of it all.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

I also found being called Sir rather silly.

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

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.

Analysis I take to be a scientific procedure. What I do is creative. It doesn't spring from the same part of the mind.

One's life has many compartments.

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.

I think that NATO is itself a war criminal.

All I can say is that I did admire 'The Lives of Others', which I thought was really about something and beautifully done.

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.

I don't idealise women. I enjoy them. I have been married to two of the most independent women it is possible to think of.