Howard Barker quotes:

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  • I submit all my plays to the National Theatre for rejection. To assure myself I am seeing clearly.

  • I have plenty of political views and plenty of social and personal prejudices. I do not, however, value them.

  • Theatre should be a taxing experience: the greatest achievement of a writer is to produce a character who creates anxiety.

  • We are suffocated by writers who want to enlighten us with their truths. For me, the theatre is beautiful because it is a secret, and secrets seduce us, we all want to share secrets.

  • I believe in poetic discourse, in the value of speech in a non-naturalistic way; it's speculative.

  • I never 'say' anything in my work. I invent a world. Let others decide what is being 'said'.

  • The artist who makes himself accessible is self-destructive.

  • Tragedy is the greatest art form of all. It gives us the courage to continue with our life by exposing us to the pain of life. It is unsentimental, it takes us seriously as human beings, it is not condescending. Paradoxically, by seeing pain we are made greater, it becomes a need.

  • I've often taken important classical, biblical or literary stories and interrogated them. I have tried to reinvigorate Lot by interpreting it differently.

  • When I write, I am not giving a lecture, I am speculating on behavior. Sometimes this is dangerous, but it should be. As I say often, theatre is a dark place and we should keep the light out of it.

  • I don't like sympathetic characters.

  • A good play puts the audience through a certain ordeal.

  • A good play puts the audience through a certain ordeal,

  • I am so far as I am aware not at all influenced by dramatists, expect for Shakespeare, who I have to say, it is impossible not to be influenced by if you hold language to be the major element of theatre.

  • I'm not interested in entertainment.

  • I'm not interested in observed reality.

  • You emerge from tragedy equipped against lies. After the musical, you're anybody's fool

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