I feel a great affinity to his way of thinking. That's why I wanted to work with him. He is a composer of words and I am a composer of music, but we have a lot in common.

It's so easy for propaganda to work, and dissent to be mocked.

George W. Bush is always protesting that he has the fate of the world in mind and bangs on about the 'freedom-loving peoples' he's seeking to protect. I'd love to meet a freedom-hating people.

Things like Abu Ghraib and even Guantanamo are not new things: there are many precedents.

I wrote 'The Room', 'The Birthday Party', and 'The Dumb Waiter' in 1957, I was acting all the time in a repertory company, doing all kinds of jobs, traveling to Bournemouth and Torquay and Birmingham.

My second play, The Birthday Party, I wrote in 1958 - or 1957. It was totally destroyed by the critics of the day, who called it an absolute load of rubbish.