1.
I never 'say' anything in my work. I invent a world. Let others decide what is being 'said'.
Howard Barker
2.
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.
Howard Barker
3.
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.
Howard Barker
4.
Theatre should be a taxing experience: the greatest achievement of a writer is to produce a character who creates anxiety.
Howard Barker
5.
I don't like sympathetic characters.
Howard Barker
6.
I'm not interested in observed reality.
Howard Barker
7.
I submit all my plays to the National Theatre for rejection. To assure myself I am seeing clearly.
Howard Barker
8.
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.
Howard Barker
9.
The artist who makes himself accessible is self-destructive.
Howard Barker
10.
I have plenty of political views and plenty of social and personal prejudices. I do not, however, value them.
Howard Barker
11.
A good play puts the audience through a certain ordeal.
Howard Barker
12.
I'm not interested in entertainment.
Howard Barker
13.
You emerge from tragedy equipped against lies. After the musical, you're anybody's fool
Howard Barker
14.
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.
Howard Barker
15.
It is impossible - now, at this point in the long journey of human culture - to avoid the sense that pain is necessity; that it is neither accident, nor malformation, nor malice, nor misunderstanding, that it is integral to the human character both in its inflicting and in its suffering, this terrible sense Tragedy alone has articulated, and will continue to articulate, and in so doing, make beautiful...
Howard Barker
16.
I believe in poetic discourse, in the value of speech in a non-naturalistic way; it's speculative.
Howard Barker
17.
I’ve often taken important classical, biblical or literary stories and interrogated them. I have tried to reinvigorate Lot by interpreting it differently.
Howard Barker