Samuel Beckett Quotes

Then I went back into the house and wrote, It is midnight. The rain is beating on the windows. It was not midnight. It was not raining.

I could not have gone through the awful wretched mess of life without having left a stain upon the silence.

That double-headed monster of damnation and salvation--Time.

It is right that he too should have his little chronicle, his memories, his reason, and be able to recognize the good in the bad, the bad in the worst, and so grow gently old down all the unchanging days, and die one day like any other day, only shorter.

Already all confusion. Things and imaginings. As of always. Confusion amounting to nothing. Despite precautions. If only she could be pure figment. Unalloyed. This old so dying woman. So dead. In the madhouse of the skull and nowhere else. Where no more precautions to be taken. No precautions possible. Cooped up there with the rest. Hovel and stones. The lot. And the eye. How simple all then. If only all could be pure figment. Neither be nor been nor by any shift to be. Gently gently. On. Careful.

In the name of Bacon will you chicken me up that egg. Shall I swallow cave-phantoms?

For in me there have always been two fools, among others, one asking nothing better than to stay where he is and the other imagining that life might be slightly less horrible a little further on.

I still smile it's not worth the trouble any more for a long time now it's not been worth the trouble the tongue spring goes into the mud I stay like this not thirsty any more the tongue goes back into the mouth it closes it has to make a straight line now it's done I've made the image.

As it is with the love of the body, so with the friendship of the mind, the full is only reached by admittance to the most retired places.

But he had hardly felt the absurdity of those things, on the one hand, and the necessity of those others, on the other, (for it is rare that the feeling of absurdity is not followed by the feeling of necessity), when he felt the absurdity of those things of which he had just felt the necessity (for it is rare that the feeling of necessity is not followed by the feeling of absurdity.)

What is that unforgettable line?

To restore silence is the role of objects.

If by Godot I had meant God I would have said God, and not Godot.

My dear Tom, Delighted to get your letter. Do write again. This life is terrible and I don't understand how it can be endured.

What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in the immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come

With all this darkness round me I feel less alone.

Tears and laughter, they are so much Gaelic to me.

I tried to groan, Help! Help! But the tone that came out was that of polite conversation.

I love order. It's my dream. A world where all would be silent and still, and each thing in its last place, under the last dust.

Just under the surface I shall be, all together at first, then separate and drift, through all the earth and perhaps in the end through a cliff into the sea, something of me. A ton of worms in an acre, that is a wonderful thought, a ton of worms, I believe it.

The essential is to go on squirming forever at the end of the line, as long as there are waters and banks and ravening in heaven asporting God to plague his creature, per pro his chosen shits.

How long have I been here, what a question, I've often wondered. And often I could answer, An hour, a month, a year, a century, depending on what I meant by here, and me, and being, and there I never went looking for extravagant meanings, there I never much varied, only the here would sometimes seem to vary.

I have my faults, but changing my tune is not one of them.

To think, when one is no longer young, when one is not yet old, that one is no longer young, that one is not yet old, that is perhaps something.

God is love. Yes or no? No.

Women are all the bloody sameyou can't love for five minutes without wanting it abolished in brats and house bloody wifery.

Not to want to say, not to know what you want to say, not to be able to say what you think you want to say, and never to stop saying, or hardly ever, that is the thing to keep in mind, even in the heat of composition.

Decidedly it will never have been given to me to finish anything, except perhaps breathing. One must not be greedy.

Estragon: Nothing to be done.

Finished, it's finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished. Grain upon grain, one by one, and one day, suddenly, there's a heap, a little heap, the impossible heap. I can't be punished any more. I'll go now to my kitchen, ten feet by ten feet by ten feet, and wait for him to whistle me. Nice dimensions, nice proportions, I'll lean on the table, and look at the wall, and wait for him to whistle me.

It's a lot to ask of one creature, it's a lot to ask, that he should first behave as if he were not, then as if he were, before being admitted to that peace where he neither is, nor is not, and where the language dies that permits of such expressions.

My work is a matter of fundamental sounds (no joke intended) made as fully as possible, and I accept responsibility for nothing else. If people want to have headaches among the overtones, let them. And provide their own aspirin.

If I was dead, I wouldn't know I was dead. That's the only thing I have against death. I want to enjoy my death.

The new light above my table is a great improvement. With all this darkness around me I feel less alone. (Pause.) In a way. (Pause.) I love to get up and move about in it, then back here to... (hesitates) ...me. (Pause.)

You cried for night - it falls. Now cry in darkness.

Don't touch me! Don't question me! Don't speak to me! Stay with me!

If you do not love me I shall not be loved If I do not love you I shall not love.

Do we mean love, when we say love?

We are all born; some remain so.

Enough. Sudden enough. Sudden all far. No move and sudden all far. All least. Three pins. One pinhole. In dimmost dim. Vasts apart. At bounds of boundless void. Whence no farther. Best worse no farther. Nohow less. Nohow worse. Nohow naught. Nohow on.

No, I regret nothing, all I regret is having been born, dying is such a long tiresome business I always found.

Silence and darkness were all I craved. Well, I get a certain amount of both. They being one.

Don’t wait to be hunted to hide, that was always my motto.

We wait. We are bored. (He throws up his hand.) No, don't protest, we are bored to death, there's no denying it. Good. A diversion comes along and what do we do? We let it go to waste. Come, let's get to work! (He advances towards the heap, stops in his stride.) In an instant all will vanish and we'll be alone more, in the midst of nothingness!

It is useless not to seek, not to want, for when you cease to seek you start to find, and when you cease to want, then life begins to ram her fish and chips down your gullet until you puke, and then the puke down your gullet until you puke the puke, and then the puked puke until you begin to like it.

Perhaps that's what I feel, an outside and an inside and me in the middle, perhaps that's what I am, the thing that divides the world in two, on the one side the outside, on the other the inside, that can be as thin as foil, I'm neither one side nor the other, I'm in the middle, I'm the partition, I've two surfaces and no thickness, perhaps that's what I feel, myself vibrating, I'm the tympanum, on the one hand the mind, on the other the world, I don't belong to either.

To every man his little cross. Till he dies. And is forgotten.

I knew it would soon be the end, so I played the part, you know, the part of — how shall I say, I don’t know.