Samuel Beckett Quotes & Sayings

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. — Samuel Beckett

Why then the human voice, rather than a hyena's howls or the clanging of a hammer? Answer, so that the shock may not be too great, when the writhings of true lips meet his gaze. Between them they find a rejoinder to everything. And how they enjoy talking, they know there is no worse torment, for one not in the conversation. — Samuel Beckett

I thought much about myself. That is to say I often took a quick look at myself, closed my eyes, forgot, began again. — Samuel Beckett

No matter, no matter how, they are doing the best they can, with the miserable means at their disposal, a voice, a little light, poor devils, that's what they're paid for, they say, No sign of hardening, no sign of softening, impossible to say, no matter, it's a good average, we only have to continue, one day he'll understand, one day he'll thrill, the little spasm will come, a change in the eye, and cast him up among us. To be on the watch and never sight, to listen for the moan that never comes, that's not a life worth living either. And yet it's theirs. — Samuel Beckett

I am in my mother's room. It's I who live there now. I don't know how I got there. Perhaps in an ambulance, certainly a vehicle of some kind. I was helped. I'd never have got there alone. There's this man who comes every week. Perhaps I got there thanks to him. He says not. He gives me money and takes away the pages. So many pages,so much money. Yes, I work now, a little like I used to, except that I don't know how to work any more. That doesn't matter apparently. What I'd like now is to speak of the things that are left, say my good-byes, finish dying. They don't want that. Yes, there is more than one, apparently. But it's always the same one that comes. You'll do that later, he says. Good. The truth is I haven't much will left. When he comes for the fresh pages he brings back the previous week's. They are marked with signs I don't understand ... Here's my beginning. It must mean something, or they wouldn't keep it. Here it is. — Samuel Beckett

You are not satisfied unless form is so strictly divorced from content that you can comprehend the one without almost without bothering to read the other. — Samuel Beckett

Bid us sigh on from day to day,
And wish and wish the soul away,
Till youth and genial years are flown,
And all the life of life is gone — Samuel Beckett

I shall state silences more competently than ever a better man spangled the butterflies of vertigo. — Samuel Beckett

In an instant all will vanish and we'll be alone once more, in the midst of nothingness. — Samuel Beckett

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

Lick your neighbor as yourself! — Samuel Beckett

The old thing where it always was, back again. As when a man, having found at last what he sought, a woman, for example, or a friend, loses it, or realises what it is. And yet 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. The glutton castaway, the drunkard in the desert, the lecher in prison, they are the happy ones. To hunger, thirst, lust, every day afresh and every day in vain, after the old prog, the old booze, the old whores, that's the nearest we'll ever get to felicity, the new porch and the very latest garden. I pass on the tip for what it is worth. — Samuel Beckett

The only sin is the sin of being born — 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 asporting God to plague his creature, per pro his chosen shits. — Samuel Beckett

Perhaps I shall be obliged, in order not to peter out, to invent another fairy-tale, yet another, with heads, trunks, arms, legs and all that follows, let loose in the changeless round of imperfect shadow and dubious light. — Samuel Beckett

A instant of fraternity. But outside their explosions of violence this sentiment is as foreign to them as butterflies. And this owing not so much to want of heart or intelligence as to the ideal preying on one and all. So much for the inviolable zenith where for amateurs of myth lies hidden a way out to earth and sky. — Samuel Beckett

We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment. How many people can boast as much? — Samuel Beckett

Do we mean love, when we say love? — Samuel Beckett

It was the only way to progress, to stop. — Samuel Beckett

The end of a life is always vivifying. — Samuel Beckett

Habit is a great deadener. — Samuel Beckett

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

What I liked in anthropology was its inexhaustible faculty of negation, its relentless definition of man, as though he were no better than God, in terms of what he is not. But my ideas on this subject were always horribly confused, for my knowledge of men was scant and the meaning of being beyond me. — Samuel Beckett

The essential doesn't change. — Samuel Beckett

Nothing matters but the writing. There has been nothing else worthwhile ... a stain upon the silence. — Samuel Beckett

And I seemed to see myself ageing as swiftly as a day-fly. But the idea of ageing was not exactly the one which offered itself to me. And what I saw was more like a crumbling, a frenzied collapsing of all that had always protected me from all I was always condemned to be. — Samuel Beckett

And Watt preferred on the whole having to do with things of which he did not know the name, though this too was painful to Watt, to having to do with things of which the known name, the proven name, was not the name, any more, for him. For he could always hope, of a thing of which he had never known the name, that he would learn the name, some day, and so be tranquilized. — Samuel Beckett

Vladimir: I don't understand.
Estragon: Use your intelligence, can't you?
Vladimir uses his intelligence.
Vladimir: (finally) I remain in the dark. — Samuel Beckett

Oh not that I was ever even incompletely deaf. — Samuel Beckett

Suffering is the main condition of the artistic experience. — 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

To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now. — Samuel Beckett

James Joyce was a synthesizer, trying to bring in as much as he could. I am an analyzer, trying to leave out as much as I can. — Samuel Beckett

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. *1937 — Samuel Beckett

I pause to record that I feel in extraordinary form. Delirium perhaps. — Samuel Beckett

Probably nothing in the world arouses more false hopes than the first four hours of a diet. — Samuel Beckett

I try. I fail. I try again. I fail better. — Samuel Beckett

I'm no longer with these assassins, in this bed of terror, but in my distant refuge, my hands twined together, my head bowed, weak, breathless, calm, free, and older than I'll ever have been, if my calculations are correct. I'll tell my story in the past none the less, as though it were a myth, or an old fable, for this evening I need another age in which I became what I was. — Samuel Beckett

What counts is to be in the world, the posture is immaterial, so long as one is on earth. To breathe is all that is required. — 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

Deplorable mania, when something happens, to inquire what. — Samuel Beckett

Estragon: Nothing to be done. — Samuel Beckett

HAMM
Open the window.
CLOV
What for?
HAMM
I want to hear the sea.
CLOV
You wouldn't hear it.
HAMM Even if you opened the window?
CLOV
No.
HAMM
Then it's not worth opening it?
CLOV
No.
HAMM(violently)
Then open it! — Samuel Beckett

My mistakes are my life. — Samuel Beckett

It is by the nadir that we come, said Watt, and it is by the nadir that we go, whatever that means. And the artist must have felt something of this kind too, for the circle did not turn, as circles will, but sailed steadfast in its white skies, with its patient breach for ever below. — Samuel Beckett

The sweet creature! She would look it up in her big Dante when she got home. What a woman! — Samuel Beckett

At last I began to think, that is to say to listen harder. — Samuel Beckett

I seem to grasp at certain moments the nuance that divides bad from worse. — Samuel Beckett

never noticed you were waiting alone, that's the show, waiting alone, in the restless air, for it to begin, for something to begin, for there to be something else but you, for the power to rise, the courage to leave, you try and be reasonable, perhaps you are blind, probably deaf, the show is over,... — Samuel Beckett

He was split, one part of him never left this mental chamber that pictured itself as a sphere full of light fading into dark, because there was no way out. But motion in this world depended on rest in the world outside. A man is in bed, wanting to sleep. A rat is behind the wall at his head, wanting to move. The man hears the rat fidget and cannot sleep, the rat hears the man fidget and dares not move. They are both unhappy, one fidgeting and the other waiting, or both happy, the rat moving and the man sleeping. — Samuel Beckett

That penny farthing hell you call your mind — Samuel Beckett

Not that Quin, regarding this and other traits of his nature, was quite devoid of curiosity. But each time he set himself to give it satisfaction, he was filled with that selfsame chagrin as is the man, woman, or the child, who seeks to obtain, without the aid of a reflector, a clear view of his or her own anus. — Samuel Beckett

Estragon: I remember the maps of the Holy Land. Coloured they were. Very pretty. The Dead Sea was pale blue. The very look of it made me thirsty. That's where we'll go, I used to say, that's where we'll go for our honeymoon. We'll swim. We'll be happy. — Samuel Beckett

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. — Samuel Beckett

They come
different and the same
with each it is different and the same
with each the absence of love is different
with each the absence of love is the same — Samuel Beckett

And for what I have done ill and for what I have done well and for what I have left undone, I ask you to forgive me. And I ask you to think of me always
bugger these buttons
with forgiveness, as you desire to be thought of with forgiveness, though personally of course it is all the same to me whether I am thought of with forgiveness, or with rancour, or not at all. Good night. — Samuel Beckett

VLADIMIR: (after a moment of bewilderment). We'll see when the time comes. (Pause.) I was saying that things have changed here since yesterday.
ESTRAGON: Everything oozes.
VLADIMIR: Look at the tree.
ESTRAGON: It's never the same pus from one second to the next.
VLADIMIR: The tree, look at the tree. Estragon looks at the tree.
ESTRAGON: Was it not there yesterday?
VLADIMIR: Yes of course it was there. Do you not remember? We nearly hanged ourselves from it. But you wouldn't. Do you not remember?
ESTRAGON: You dreamt it.
VLADIMIR: Is it possible you've forgotten already?
ESTRAGON: That's the way I am. Either I forget immediately or I never forget. — Samuel Beckett

Yes, there is no good pretending, it is hard to leave everything. — Samuel Beckett

The dust will not settle in our time. And when it does some great roaring machine will come and whirl it all skyhigh again. — Samuel Beckett

Use your head, can't you, use your head, you're on earth, there's no cure for that! — Samuel Beckett

VLADIMIR: Well? What do we do?
ESTRAGON: Don't let's do anything. It's safer. — Samuel Beckett

Estragon: They're too big
Vladimir: Perhaps you'll have socks some day — Samuel Beckett

Unfathomable mind: now beacon, now sea. — Samuel Beckett

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. — Samuel Beckett

We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist? — Samuel Beckett

Don't touch me! Don't question me! Don't speak to me! Stay with me! — Samuel Beckett

It's a rare thing not to have been bonny
once. — Samuel Beckett

you don't feel a mouth on you, you don't feel your mouth any more, no need of a mouth, the words are everywhere, inside me, outside me... — Samuel Beckett

In order to be company he must display a certain mental activity. But it need not be of a high order. Indeed it might be argued the lower the better. Up to a point. The lower the order of mental activity the better the company. Up to a point. — Samuel Beckett

Real scratching is superior to masturbation, in my opinion. One can masturbate up to the age of seventy, and even beyond, but in the end it becomes a mere habit. Whereas to scratch myself properly I would have needed a dozen hands. I itched all over, on the privates, in the bush up to the navel, under the arms, in the arse, and then patches of eczema and psoriasis that I could set raging merely by thinking of them. It was in the arse I had the most pleasure, I stuck in my forefinger up to the knuckle. Later, if I had to shit, the pain was atrocious. But I hardly shat any more. — 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

Success and failure on the public level never mattered much to me, in fact I feel more at home with the latter, having breathed deep of its vivifying air all my writing life up to the last couple of years. — Samuel Beckett

The search for myself is ended. I am buried in the world, I knew I would find my place there one day, the old world cloisters me, victorious. I am happy, I knew I would be happy one day. But I am not wise. For the wise thing now would be to let go, at this instant of happiness. And what do I do? I go back again to the light, to the fields I so longed to love, to the sky all astir with little white clouds as white and light as snowflakes, to the life I could never manage, through my own fault perhaps, through pride, or pettiness, but I don't think so. — Samuel Beckett

And he said also, by way of a rider, that even if he had the whole night before him, in which to rest, and grow warm, on a chair, in the kitchen, even then it would be a poor resting, and a mean warming, beside the rest and warmth that he remembered, the rest and warmth that he awaited, a very poor resting indeed, and a paltry warming, and so in any case very likely a source, in the long run, less of gratification, than of annoyance. — Samuel Beckett

There is no escape from yesterday because yesterday has deformed us, or been deformed by us. The mood is of no importance. Deformation has taken place. — Samuel Beckett

Be again, be again. (Pause.) All that old misery. (Pause.) Once wasn't enough for you. — 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 ... The Unnamable — Samuel Beckett

I was sorry he had not a cat, or a young dog, or better still, an old dog. But all he had to offer in the way of dumb companions was a pink and grey parrot. He used to try and teach it to say, Nihil in intellectu, etc. These first three words the bird managed well enough, but the celebrated restriction was too much for it, all you heard was a series of squawks. — Samuel Beckett

None looks within himself where none can be. — Samuel Beckett

My way is in the sand flowing
between the shingle and the dune
the summer rain rains on my life
on me my life harrying fleeing
to its beginning to its end — Samuel Beckett

We go wherever the flesh creeps least, said Mercier. We dodge along, hugging the walls, wherever the shit lies least thick. — Samuel Beckett

But it was not long before I found myself alone, in the dark. That is why I gave up trying to play and took to myself for ever shapelessness and speechlessness, incurious wondering, darkness, long stumbling with outstretched arms, hiding. Such is the earnestness from which, for nearly a century now, I have never been able to depart. From now on it will be different. I shall never do any thing any more from now on but play. No, I must not begin with an exaggeration. But I shall play a great part of the time, from now on, the greater part, if I can. But perhaps I shall not succeed any better than hitherto. Perhaps as hitherto I shall find myself abandoned, in the dark, without anything to play with. Then I shall play with myself. To have been able to conceive such a plan is encouraging. — Samuel Beckett

The dead die hard, trespassers on the beyond, they must take the place as they find it, the shafts and manholes back into the muck, till such time as the lord of the manor incurs through his long acquiescence a duty of care in respect of them. They are free among the dead by all means, then their troubles are over, their natural troubles. But the debt of nature, that scandalous post-obit on one's own estate, can no more be discharged by kicking the bucket than descent can be made into the same stream twice. This is a true saying. — Samuel Beckett

But politeness and candour run together, when one is not fitting neither is the other. Then the occasion calls for silence, that frail partition between the ill-concealed and the ill-revealed, the clumsily false and the unavoidably so. — Samuel Beckett

Hamm: What's he doing?
(CLOV raises lid of NAGG's bin, stoops, looks into it. Pause.)
Clov: He's crying.
(He closes lid, straightens up)
Hamm: Then he's living. — Samuel Beckett

And what I have, what I am, is enough, was always enough for me, and as far as my dear little sweet little future is concerned I have no qualms, I have a good time coming. — Samuel Beckett

That desert of loneliness and recrimination that men call love. — Samuel Beckett

The words of the rose to the rose floated up in his mind: "No gardener has died, comma, within rosaceous memory." He sang a little song, he drank his bottle of stout, he dashed away a tear, he made himself comfortable.
So it goes in the world. — 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

Our vulgar perception is not concerned with other than vulgar phenomena. — Samuel Beckett

Here he stood. Here he sat. Here he knelt. Here he lay. Here he moved, to and fro, from the door to the window, from the window to the door; from the window to the door, from the door to the window; from the fire to the bed, from the bed to the fire; from the bed to the fire, from the fire to the bed. — Samuel Beckett

Do you believe in the life to come? Mine was always that. — Samuel Beckett

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. — Samuel Beckett

Say that again said the red gash in the white putty. — Samuel Beckett

In reality I said nothing at all, but I heard a murmur, something gone wrong with the silence, and I pricked up my ears, like an animal I imagine, which gives a start and pretends to be dead. — Samuel Beckett

Lousse tried to make him say, Pretty Polly! I think it was too late. He listened, his head on one side, pondered, then said, Fuck the son of a bitch. It was clear he was doing his best. — Samuel Beckett

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

All that is active, all that is enveloped in time and space, is endowed with what might be described as an abstract, ideal and absolute impermeability. — Samuel Beckett

And at the thought of the punishments Youdi might inflict upon me I was seized by such a mighty fit of laughter that I shook, with mightly silent laughter and my features composed in their wonted sadness and calm. But my whole body shook, and even my legs, so that I had to lean against a tree, or against a bush, when the fit came on me standing, my umbrella being no longer sufficient to keep me from falling. Strange laughter truly, and no doubt misnamed. — 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