More than once, Pinter declared that Beckett was his mentor, and that Beckett was the greatest prose writer in the twentieth century. I believe otherwise. I personally relish Pinter's dialogue more than Beckett's. The Birthday Party's Goldberg speaks in such a fascinating, spell-binding and breath-taking way that I can find only in Beckett's Hamm and Pozzo who I think are Beckett's greatest creations. The rest of Beckett is quicksand