Samuel Beckett

I felt ill at ease with all this air about me, lost before the confusion of innumerable prospects.

— Samuel Beckett

Yes, I don’t know why, but I have never been disappointed, and I often was in the early days, without feeling at the same time, or a moment later, an undeniable relief.

— Samuel Beckett

Poor juvenile solutions, explaining nothing. No need then for caution, we may reason on to our heart’s content, the fog won’t lift.

— Samuel Beckett

Does one ever know oneself why one laughs?

— Samuel Beckett

The short winter’s day was drawing to a close. It seems to me sometimes that these are the only days I have ever known, and especially that most charming moment of all, just before night wipes them out.

— Samuel Beckett

I don’t know why I told this story. I could just as well have told another. Perhaps some other time I’ll be able to tell another. Living souls, you will see how alike they are.

— Samuel Beckett

They never lynch children, babies, no matter what they do they are whitewashed in advance.

— Samuel Beckett

All I say cancels out, I’ll have said nothing.

— Samuel Beckett

It’s to me this evening something has to happen, to my body as in myth and metamorphosis, this old body to which nothing ever happened, or so little, which never met with anything, wished for anything, in its tarnished universe, except for the mirrors to shatter, the plane, the curved, the magnifying, the minifying, and to vanish in the havoc of its images.

— Samuel Beckett

I marshalled the words and opened my mouth, thinking I would hear them. But all I heard was a kind of rattle, unintelligible even to me who knew what was intended.

— Samuel Beckett

How tell what remains ? But it’s the end. Or have I been dreaming, am I dreaming? No no, none of that, for dream is nothing, a joke, and significant what is worse.

— Samuel Beckett

To think that in a moment all will be said, all to do again.

— Samuel Beckett

I didn’t feel well, but they told me I was well enough. They didn’t say in so many words that I was as well as I would ever be, but that was the implication.

— Samuel Beckett

The earth makes a sound as of sighs and the last drops fall from the emptied cloudless sky. A small boy, stretching out his hands and looking up at the blue sky, asked his mother how such a thing was possible. Fuck off, she said.

— Samuel Beckett

My appearance still made people laugh, with that hearty jovial laugh so good for the health.

— Samuel Beckett

It was long since I had longed for anything and the effect on me was horrible.

— Samuel Beckett

A mask of dirty old hairy leather, with two holes and a slit, it was too far gone for the old trick of please your honour and God reward you and pity upon me. It was disastrous.

— Samuel Beckett

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

— Samuel Beckett

Normally I didn’t see a great deal. I didn’t hear a great deal either. I didn’t pay attention. Strictly speaking I wasn’t there. Strictly speaking I believe I’ve never been anywhere.

— Samuel Beckett

Do you ever think? The voice, God forbid.

— Samuel Beckett

The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh.

— Samuel Beckett

Poets are the sense, philosophers the intelligence of humanity.

— Samuel Beckett

I knew it would soon be the end, so I played the part, you know, the part of —\xa0how shall I say, I don’t know.

— Samuel Beckett

To contrive a little kingdom, in the midst of the universal muck, then shit on it, ah that was me all over.

— Samuel Beckett

The memory came faint and cold of the story I might have told, a story in the likeness of my life, I mean without the courage to end or the strength to go on.

— Samuel Beckett

By nature I mean here, like the naïvest realist, a composite of perceiver and perceived, not a datum, an experience. All I wish to suggest is that the tendency and accomplishment of this painting are fundamentally those of previous painting, straining to enlarge the statement of a compromise.

— Samuel Beckett

The expression that there is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, no desire to express, together with the obligation to express.

— Samuel Beckett

Don't wait to be hunted to hide, that's always been my motto.

— Samuel Beckett

But is it true love, in the rectum? That’s what bothers me sometimes.

— Samuel Beckett

To restore silence is the role of objects.

— Samuel Beckett

There is something … more important in life than punctuality, and that is decorum.

— Samuel Beckett

To him who has nothing it is forbidden not to relish filth.

— Samuel Beckett

And truly it little matters what I say, this or that or any other thing. Saying is inventing. Wrong, very rightly wrong. You invent nothing, you think you are inventing, you think you are escaping, and all you do is stammer out your lesson, the remnants of a pensum one day got by heart and long forgotten, life without tears, as it is wept.

— Samuel Beckett

The fact is, it seems, that the most you can hope is to be a little less, in the end, the creature you were in the beginning, and the middle.

— Samuel Beckett

My life, my life, now I speak of it as of something over, now as of a joke which still goes on, and it is neither, for at the same time it is over and it goes on, and is there any tense for that? Watch wound and buried by the watchmaker, before he died, whose ruined works will one day speak of God, to the worms.

— Samuel Beckett

All the things you would do gladly, oh without enthusiasm, but gladly, all the things there seems no reason for your not doing, and that you do not do! Can it be we are not free? It might be worth looking into.

— Samuel Beckett

It sometimes happens and will sometimes happen again that I forget who I am and strut before my eyes, like a stranger.

— Samuel Beckett

Anything worse than what I do, without knowing what, or why, I have never been able to conceive, and that doesn’t surprise me, for I never tried. For had I been able to conceive something worse than what I had I would have known no peace until I got it, if I know anything about myself.

— Samuel Beckett

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

— Samuel Beckett

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.

— Samuel Beckett

Yes, there were times when I forgot not only who I was, but that I was, forgot to be.

— Samuel Beckett

What do you expect, one is what one is, partly at least.

— Samuel Beckett

To know nothing is nothing, not to want to know anything likewise, but to be beyond knowing anything, to know you are beyond knowing anything, that is when peace enters in, to the soul of the incurious seeker.

— Samuel Beckett

What I assert, deny, question, in the present, I still can. But mostly I shall use the various tenses of the past. For mostly I do not know, it is perhaps no longer so, it is too soon to know, I simply do not know, perhaps shall never know.

— Samuel Beckett

They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.

— Samuel Beckett

I don’t like animals. It’s a strange thing, I don’t like men and I don’t like animals. As for God, he is beginning to disgust me.

— Samuel Beckett

Unfathomable mind, now beacon, now sea.

— Samuel Beckett

I was not made for the great light that devours, a dim lamp was all I had been given, and patience without end, to shine it on the empty shadows. I was a solid in the midst of other solids.

— Samuel Beckett

I get up, go out, and everything is changed. The blood drains from my head, the noise of things bursting, merging, avoiding one another, assails me on all sides, my eyes search in vain for two things alike, each pinpoint of skin screams a different message, I drown in the spray of phenomena.

— Samuel Beckett

There is a little of everything, apparently, in nature, and freaks are common.

— Samuel Beckett

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.

— Samuel Beckett

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

— Samuel Beckett

Nothing is more real than nothing.

— Samuel Beckett

Let me say before I go any further that I forgive nobody. I wish them all an atrocious life and then the fires and ice of hell and in the execrable generations to come an honoured name.

— Samuel Beckett

Words are all we have.

— Samuel Beckett

The loss of consciousness for me was never any great loss.

— Samuel Beckett

Or I might be able to catch one, a little girl for example, and half strangle her, three quarters, until she promises to give me my stick, give me soup, empty my pots, kiss me, fondle me, smile to me, give me my hat, stay with me, follow the hearse weeping into her handkerchief, that would be nice. I am such a good man, at bottom, such a good man, how is it that nobody ever noticed it?

— Samuel Beckett

He who has waited long enough, will wait forever. And there comes the hour when nothing more can happen and nobody more can come and all is ended but the waiting that knows itself in vain.

— Samuel Beckett

The tears stream down my cheeks from my unblinking eyes. What makes me weep so? From time to time. There is nothing saddening here. Perhaps it is liquefied brain.

— Samuel Beckett

Deplorable mania, when something happens, to inquire what.

— Samuel Beckett

In order to obtain the optimum view of what takes place in front of me, I should have to lower my eyes a little. But I lower my eyes no more. In a word, I only see what appears close beside me, what I best see I see ill.

— Samuel Beckett

These things I say, and shall say, if I can, are no longer, or are not yet, or never were, or never will be, or if they were, if they are, if they will be, were not here, are not here, will not be here, but elsewhere.

— Samuel Beckett

I, of whom I know nothing, I know my eyes are open, because of the tears that pour from them unceasingly.

— Samuel Beckett

Dear incomprehension, it’s thanks to you I’ll be myself, in the end.

— Samuel Beckett

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

— Samuel Beckett

At no moment do I know what I’m talking about, nor of whom, nor of where, nor how, nor why, but I could employ fifty wretches for this sinister operation and still be short of the fifty-first, to close the circuit, that I know, without knowing what it means.

— Samuel Beckett

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 a sporting god to plague his creatures, per pro his chosen shits.

— Samuel Beckett

What a joy to know where one is, and where one will stay, without being there. Nothing to do but stretch out comfortably on the rack, in the blissful knowledge you are nobody for all eternity. A pity I should have to give tongue at the same time, it prevents it from bleeding in peace, licking the lips.

— Samuel Beckett

How all becomes clear and simple when one opens an eye on the within, having of course previously exposed it to the without, in order to benefit by the contrast.

— Samuel Beckett

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

— Samuel Beckett

What can it matter to me, that I succeed or fail? The undertaking is none of mine, if they want me to succeed I’ll fail, and vice versa, so as not to be rid of my tormentors.

— Samuel Beckett

Bah, the latest news, the latest news is not the last.

— Samuel Beckett

Ah if only this voice could stop, this meaningless voice which prevents you from being nothing, just barely prevents you from being nothing and nowhere, just enough to keep alight this little yellow flame feebly darting from side to side, panting, as if straining to tear itself from its wick, it should never have been lit, or it should never have been fed, or it should have been put out, put out, it should have been let go out.

— Samuel Beckett

Yes, in my life, since we must call it so, there were three things, the inability to speak, the inability to be silent, and solitude, that’s what I’ve had to make the best of.

— Samuel Beckett

This place, if I could describe this place, no place around me, there’s no end to me, I don’t know what it is, it isn’t flesh, it doesn’t end, it’s like air…

— Samuel Beckett

Perhaps it's done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.

— Samuel Beckett

Tears, that could be the tone, if they weren't so easy, the true tone and tenor at last.

— Samuel Beckett

My keepers, why keepers, I'm in no danger of stirring an inch, ah I see, it's to make me think I'm a prisoner, frantic with corporeality, rearing to get out and away.

— Samuel Beckett

Here's my life, why not, it is one, if you like, if you must, I don't say no, this evening. There has to be one, it seems, once there is speech, no need of a story, a story is not compulsory, just a life, that's the mistake I made, one of the mistakes, to have wanted a story for myself, whereas life alone is enough.

— Samuel Beckett

They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.

— Samuel Beckett

Hamm: Can there be misery (he yawns) loftier than mine?

— Samuel Beckett

Hamm: Ah, the old questions, the old answers, there's nothing like them!

— Samuel Beckett

Hamm: If I could sleep I might make love. I'd go into the woods. My eyes would see … the sky, the earth. I'd run, run, they wouldn't catch me.

— Samuel Beckett

We are all born mad. Some remain so.

— Samuel Beckett

Hamm: There's something dripping in my head. A heart, a heart in my head.

— Samuel Beckett

Let me go to hell, that's all I ask, and go on cursing them there, and them look down and hear me, that might take some of the shine off their bliss.

— Samuel Beckett

Krapp: Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire in me now.

— Samuel Beckett

Krapp: Ah finish your booze now and get to your bed. Go on with this drivel in the morning. Or leave it at that. (Pause.) Leave it at that.

— Samuel Beckett

What do I know of man's destiny? I could tell you more about radishes.

— Samuel Beckett

No way in, go in, measure.

— Samuel Beckett

No, life ends and no, there is nothing elsewhere, and no question now of ever finding again that white speck lost in whiteness, to see if they still lie still in the stress of that storm, or of a worse storm, or in the black dark for good, or the great whiteness unchanging, and if not what they are doing.

— Samuel Beckett

All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

— Samuel Beckett

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.

— Samuel Beckett

Birth was the death of him.

— Samuel Beckett

Ever Tried. Ever Failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

— Samuel Beckett

The only sin is the sin of being born

— Samuel Beckett

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

— Samuel Beckett

Vladimir: That passed the time.

— Samuel Beckett

Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

— Samuel Beckett

We are all born mad. Some remain so.

— Samuel Beckett

What do I know of man's destiny? I could tell you more about radishes.

— Samuel Beckett

POZZO: I woke up one fine day as blind as Fortune. Sometimes I wonder if I'm not still asleep.

— Samuel Beckett

The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.

— Samuel Beckett

One day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second.

— Samuel Beckett

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

— Samuel Beckett

It was long since I had longed for anything and the effect on me was horrible.

— Samuel Beckett

Ah earth you old extinguisher.

— Samuel Beckett

I can't go on. I'll go on.

— Samuel Beckett

Spend the years of learning squandering From the loutishness of learning.

— Samuel Beckett

The only sin is the sin of being born.

— Samuel Beckett

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

— Samuel Beckett

It means what it says.

— Samuel Beckett

I grow gnomic. It is the last phase.

— Samuel Beckett

I think the next little bit of excitement is flying. I hope I am not too old to take it up seriously, nor too stupid about machines to qualify as a commercial pilot. I do not feel like spending the rest of my life writing books that no one will read. It is not as though I wanted to write them.

— Samuel Beckett

The time-state of attainment eliminates so accurately the time-state of aspiration, that the actual seems the inevitable, and, all conscious intellectual effort to reconstitute the invisible and unthinkable as a reality being fruitless, we are incapable of appreciating our joy by comparing it with our sorrow.

— Samuel Beckett

The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.

— Samuel Beckett

God is a witness that cannot be sworn.

— Samuel Beckett

Personally of course I regret everything. Not a word, not a deed, not a thought, not a need, not a grief, not a joy, not a girl, not a boy, not a doubt, not a trust, not a scorn, not a lust, not a hope, not a fear, not a smile, not a tear, not a name, not a face, no time, no place, that I do not regret, exceedingly. An ordure, from beginning to end.

— Samuel Beckett

We are no longer the same, you wiser but not sadder, and I sadder but not wiser, for wiser I could hardly become without grave personal inconvenience, whereas sorrow is a thing you can keep adding to all your life long, is it not, like a stamp or an egg collection, without feeling very much the worse for it, is it not.

— Samuel Beckett

For the only way one can speak of nothing is to speak of it as though it were something, just as the only way one can speak of God is to speak of him as though he were a man, which to be sure he was, in a sense, for a time, and as the only way one can speak of man, even our anthropologists have realized that, is to speak of him as though he were a termite.

— Samuel Beckett

But he had turned, little by little, a disturbance into words, he had made a pillow of old words, for his head.

— Samuel Beckett

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).

— Samuel Beckett

Bid us sigh on from day to day,And all the life of life is gone.

— Samuel Beckett

Memories are killing. So you must not think of certain things, of those that are dear to you, or rather you must think of them, for if you don’t there is the danger of finding them, in your mind, little by little.

— Samuel Beckett

They were most correct, according to their god.

— Samuel Beckett

I have always been amazed at my contemporaries’ lack of finesse, I whose soul writhed from morning to night, in the mere quest of itself.

— Samuel Beckett