Each play was, for me, 'a different kind of failure.' And that fact, I suppose, sent me on to write the next one. (p. 15)

Ellipses in the version published in Various Voices omit quotation listed first above, which is featured on the home page of Pinter's official Website, HaroldPinter.org, and also quoted in his 2005 Nobel Lecture (see next section). Beginning with quoting these words that he says he wrote "in 1958", he adds the following qualification: "I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?"