I'll tell you something, and this is true: I've never been able to write a film which I didn't respect. I just can't do it. I'm very happy about all the films I haven't done.
Harold PinterRead
I do tend to think that I've written a great deal out of my unconscious because half the time I don't know what a given character is going to say next.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the idea that creativity often comes from the unconscious mind, suggesting spontaneous inspiration.
Harold Pinter's quote highlights the concept that much of art and writing can stem from the unconscious, where the author might not fully control or understand the characters they create. This spontaneity can lead to profound and authentic expressions in storytelling, indicating that the creative process is sometimes guided by instinct rather than conscious thought.
In practice
In a workshop about writing techniques, you might use this quote to encourage participants to embrace their intuitive creativity.
I'll tell you something, and this is true: I've never been able to write a film which I didn't respect. I just can't do it. I'm very happy about all the films I haven't done.
All that happens is that the destruction of human beings - unless they're Americans - is called collateral damage.
I never think of myself as wise. I think of myself as possessing a critical intelligence which I intend to allow to operate.
It's so easy for propaganda to work, and dissent to be mocked.
There are places in my heart...where no living soul...has...or can ever...trespass.
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.
Nothing convinces an artist more of the arbitrariness of the means to which he resorts to attain a goal - however permanent it may be - than the creative process itself, the process of composition.
When I was younger, I thought I had to shut myself off, work really hard to cry. I learned after a while that that's just not... You know, often in life, you cry when you're caught off-guard. That's where I need to be when I'm acting, too.
I do - very specifically, I remember Bessie Smith; I used to collect 78 records that I would buy from the St Vincent de Paul store at five cents apiece, and I did this indiscriminately. I would just take whatever was there. And I listened to Patti Page and Walter Huston, 'September Song.'
In the beginning, the cubists broke up form without even knowing they were doing it. Probably the compulsion to show multiple sides of an object forced us to break the object up - or, even better, to project a panorama that unfolded different facets of the same object.
Sometimes, when you're on the streets, certain music inspires you, and then you have a vision. But, at the end of the day, it's a synthesis of visions, so you have to think, as a director, of a scene, or how to deliver a line, or how do this visually.
For me painting is a dramatic action in the course of which reality finds itself split apart
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