Quotes & Sayings About Beckett

Estragon: I'm like that. Either I forget right away or I never forget. — 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

Eve had wet cheeks when she finally answered a completely unaware Beckett. "It was amazing. It was everything I'll never have." She leaned down and pressed her lips to his hair. "Loving you is more of a curse than anything else. — Debra Anastasia

Old endgame lost of old, play and lose and have done with losing. — Samuel Beckett

It felt real, seeing his friend like that. It was like a gift. He wasn't into spiritual bullshit, but damn. Damn. That Mouse had become his friend was a gift, but a curse as well. If he'd left that whole situation alone, would Mouse - would James - have had a better life? A different outcome? — Debra Anastasia

Beckett pulled Blake's face back to look at him and held it in his hand.
Never alone, bro. You're never alone as long as I live. — Debra Anastasia

Tell me I'm enough for you," he demanded. "Can you be with me even though I'm so wrong?" She was satin and warmth. The way she squeezed, he was desperate to move, pound, inject her.
She looked at him. "This is. You are. I can't do this any more if it's not with you. So please fuck me straight to hell. — Debra Anastasia

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

Which is the more useful, the scientific world-view, with all its wonderful technical miracles, or the religious world-view, with its sense of purpose and belonging? — Chris Beckett

It will be the same silence, the same as ever, murmurous with muted lamentation, panting and exhaling of impossible sorrow, like distant laughter, and brief spells of hush, as of one buried before his time. Long or short, the same silence. Then I resurrect and begin again. — Samuel Beckett

Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed ... .To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! — Samuel Beckett

A curious world isn't it? We think we meet people by chance when chance has nothing to do with it. — Galen Beckett

Artemis: "Right, brothers. Onward. Imagine yourself seated at a cafe in Montmartre."
Myles: "In Paris."
Artemis: "Yes, Paris. And try as you will, you cannot attract the waiter's attention. What do you do?"
Beckett: "Umm ... tell Butler to jump-jump-jump on his head?"
Myles: "I agree with simple-toon."
Artemis: "No! You simply raise one finger and say clearly 'ici, garcon.'"
Beckett: "Itchy what? — Eoin Colfer

Waiting for Godot was not allowed. Neither was Henry Miller. The Soviets condemned them both. Miller would have been used as an example of decadence, being a very good analyst of how terrible and monstrous American culture was. That they liked, but they wouldn't publish him. I guess it must have been the sex. With Beckett, it must have been the hopelessness. — Barney Rosset

Yes, there is no denying it, any longer, it is not you who are dead, but all the others. So you get up and go to your mother, who thinks she is alive. That's my impression. But now I shall have to get myself out of this ditch. How joyfully I would vanish here, sinking deeper and deeper under the rains. — Samuel Beckett

I could die today, if I wished, merely by making a little effort, if I could wish, if I could make an effort. But it is just as well to let myself die, quietly, without rushing things. Something must have changed. I will not weigh upon the balance any more, one way or the other. — Samuel Beckett

There's man all over for you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet. — Samuel Beckett

We're like dominoes, Beckett and I. I've tipped us forward until everything is set in motion. I can't stop us from colliding. I should enjoy the fall while it lasts. But I know the end is coming too. The quiet. The day where everything has fallen and there's nothing left but a mess. — Rebecca Paula

I want very much to be back in the caul, on my back in the dark forever. — 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

POZZO: I am blind. (Silence.) ESTRAGON: Perhaps he can see into the future. — Samuel Beckett

All has not been said and never will be. — Samuel Beckett

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

What you do during the offseason is, first, build a base. That takes about three weeks, and then you try to get as strong as you can before you go to spring training. Once you get there, you taper down and it's just a maintenance program for the next six or seven months. — Josh Beckett

I have finished Pasternak with mixed feelings, which is more than I hoped for. — Samuel Beckett

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.) — Samuel Beckett

Are you capable of following me? He did not answer. But I seized his thoughts as clearly as if he had spoken them, namely, And you, are you capable of leading me? — Samuel Beckett

In a word there seems to be the light of the outer world, of those who know the sun and moon emerge at such an hour and such another plunge again below the surface, and who rely on this, and who know that clouds are always to be expected but sooner or later always pass away, and mine. But mine too has its alterations, I will not deny it, its dusks and dawns, but that is what I say, for I too must have lived, once, out there, and there is no recovering from that. — Samuel Beckett

[I]f you set out to mention everything you would never be done, and that's what counts, to be done, to have done. Oh, I know, even when you mention only a few of the things there are you do not get done either, I know, I know. But it's a change of muck. And if all muck is the same muck that doesn't matter, it's good to have a change of muck, to move from one heap to another, from time to time, fluttering you might say, like a butterfly, as if you were ephemeral. — Samuel Beckett

I've definitely always wanted to be the guy they tell, 'Here's the ball. Go do it.' — Josh 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

In grief, part of the pain comes from our feeling that we should not suffer so - that it is fundamentally alien to our being, this even though we all suffer, and frequently. Yet we reject suffering as a basic human truth, while greeting joy as integral to our very substance. — Wendy Beckett

If there is one question I dread, to which I have never been able to invent a satisfactory reply, it is the question what am I doing. — Samuel Beckett

I God, a very Gomorry on wheels! You lead the most exciting life I know of, and complain more about it than any two well-off bastards in the running. I am glad to hear you sound like your old self, though I never hearn of no Jonathan with two Davids.
Top of this letter is an allusion to that wonderful novel, The SotWeed Factor, in which Ebenezer Cooke, "poet and virgin," is about to be raped by a buncher sailors (they have him tied across a table in the fo'c'sle; he is saved by a raiding party of pirates, one of whom strides into the scene and says, "I God, this here ship's a very floatin' Gomorry!"
Have come down with the flu since inditing the above. [ ... ]. The mail yestiddy brought a letter from Sam Beckett! asked to see Sappho and Arky. I sag with fatigue. Blessings.
Guy — Guy Davenport

The sky sinks in the morning, this fact has been insufficiently observed. — 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

Wherever nauseated time has dropped a nice fat turd you will find our patriots, sniffing it up on all fours, their faces on fire. — Samuel Beckett

He gripped the edge of the desk. "I've done my best to make sure my brothers have no blood on their hands," he said with menacing quiet. "I'm going to hell for all three of us." Beckett said defiantly. — Debra Anastasia

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

Morning is the time to hide. They wake up, hale and hearty, their tongues hanging out for order, beauty and justice, baying for their due. Yes, from eight or nine till noon is the dangerous time. But towards noon things quiet down, the most implacable are sated, they go home, it might have been better but they've done a good job, there have been a few survivors but they'll give no more trouble, each man counts his rats. — Samuel Beckett

Are you saying a society wracked by plague is preferable to one wracked by indifference? — Bernard Beckett

All writing is a sin against speechlessness,' Beckett had said. He would have stopped, I thought, if he could. — Tim Parks

Try again. Fail again. Try better. — Samuel Beckett

What a weary way since that first disaster, what nerves torn from the heart of insentience, with the appertaining terror and the cerebellum on fire. It took him a long time to adapt himself to this excoriation. — Samuel Beckett

Dark and silent and stale, I am no prey for them. I am far from the sounds of blood and breath, immured. I shall not speak of my sufferings. Cowering deep down among them I feel nothing. It is there I die, unbeknown to my stupid flesh. That which is seen, that which cries and writhes, my witless remains. Somewhere in this turmoil thought struggles on, it too wide of the mark. It too seeks me, as it always has, where I am not to be found. It too cannot be quiet. On others let it wreak its dying rage, and leave me in peace. — Samuel Beckett

If I told you once, I told you a million times: you're a handsome motherfucker. I'm almost gay for you. — Debra Anastasia

Estragon: What about hanging ourselves?
Vladimir: Hmm. It'd give us an erection. — Samuel Beckett

Cole had made this commitment to save Beckett from hell. So he had to keep it, no matter how endlessly his soul cried in the corner of the church, begging and reaching for Kyle. At that moment he'd built a wall between her soul and his. Confusion turned to anger, which turned to panic as Kyle tried desperately to bring him back, to reconnect.
She tried to kiss the truth out of him, but he turned his head and held her at bay. She fell to her knees, but he just shook his head. His future was predetermined. Even if banishing this newborn love sliced his heart in half, it had to be done. — Debra Anastasia

And agreement only comes a little later, with the forgetting. — 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

There is this to be said for Dachsunds of such length and lowness as Nelly, that it makes very little difference to their appearance whether they stand, sit or lie. — Samuel Beckett

Baby, you didn't have to do that," Beckett whispered fiercely. "But thank you so fucking much. You look gorgeous today."
Livia kissed his cheek and let go of his arm so he could hug Kyle.
"Hey, Fairy Princess, I think you may be the hottest married chick alive right now," Beckett said. — Debra Anastasia

All in Dali is indeed contrived, a brilliant illustration of his own psyche as he understands it, as opposed to how it truly may have been. — Wendy Beckett

The whisky bears a grudge against the decanter. — Samuel Beckett

We better get over to Beckett's if you want to see how my day goes - before his crowd gets too raunchy." Blake stood up and held out his hand.
"It's eight thirty in the morning. How raunchy could they be?"
Livia wondered what, exactly, Beckett did for a living. Her question was soon answered. Everything bad. — Debra Anastasia

Nature has been mastering itself for some time now, and it is an honor to be able to capture its beauty. — Justin Beckett

And the weird weird thing about this story of Angela's Ring was that it didn't even have a point to it, no happy ending, no lesson to be learnt.
It was like one person's cry of pain, echoing out on and on and on trough the generations, even after that person was long long dead. — Chris Beckett

Memory and Habit are attributes of the Time cancer. They control the most simple Proustian episode, and an understanding of their mechanism must precede any particular analysis of their application. — Samuel Beckett

Who knows Bob's name in this outfit - let alone his lame child's? ("The last place I worked for, I was let go," recalls the bank teller. "One of my friends stopped by and asked where I was at. They said, 'She's no longer with us.' That's all. I vanished.") It's nothing personal, really. Dickens's people have been replaced by Beckett's. — Studs Terkel

In my head there are several windows, that I do know, but perhaps it is always the same one, open variously on the parading universe. — Samuel Beckett

Caravanning can be as simple or as luxurious as you choose. My own experience is probably not dissimilar to that of many families across the country who also share this hobby. — Margaret Beckett

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

Consciousness is the feel of accessing memory. — Bernard Beckett

Cannot a rugged and misty landscape be adored by the eyes as much as a sunlit garden? Perhaps it is adored even more for not seeking to make itself adorable. — Galen Beckett

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

[H]aving heard, or more probably read somewhere, in the days when I thought I would be well advised to educate myself, or amuse myself, or stupefy myself, or kill time, that when a man in a forest thinks he is going forward in a straight line, in reality he is going in a circle, I did my best to go in a circle, hoping in this way to go in a straight line. — Samuel Beckett

Story ... if you could finish it ... you could rest ... you could sleep ... not before ... oh I know ... the ones I've finished ... thousands and one ... all I ever did ... in my life ... with my life ... saying to myself ... finish this one ... it's the right one ... then rest ... — Samuel Beckett

My notes have a curious tendency, as I realize at last, to annihilate all they purport to record. — Samuel Beckett

If I were in the unenviable position of having to study my work my points of departure would be the "Naught is more real ... " and the "Ubi nihil vales ... " both already in Murphy and neither very rational. — Samuel Beckett

You can't have everything, I've often noticed it. — Samuel Beckett

Dead calm, then a murmur, a name, a murmured name, in doubt, in fear, in love, in fear, in doubt, wind of winter in the black boughs, cold calm sea whitening whispering to the shore, stealing, hastening, swelling, passing, dying, from naught come, to naught gone — Samuel Beckett

Estragon: And if he doesn't come?
Vladimir: (after a moment of bewilderment) We'll see when the time comes. — Samuel Beckett

And I was wondering how to depart without self-loathing or sadness, or with as little as possible, when a kind of immense sigh all around me announced it was not I who was departing, but the flock. — Samuel Beckett

The little cloud drifting before their glorious sun will darken the earth as long as I please. — Samuel Beckett

Fortunately I did not need affection. — Samuel Beckett

What is that unforgettable line? — Samuel Beckett

It was in this byre, littered with dry and hollow cowclaps subsiding with a sigh at the poke of my finger, that for the first time in my life, and I would not hesitate to say the last if I had not to husband my cyanide, I had to contend with a feeling which gradually assumed, to my dismay, the dread name of love. — Samuel Beckett

Where would I go, if I could go, who would I be, if I could be, what would I say, if I had a voice, who says this, saying it's me? — Samuel Beckett

No symbols where none intended. — Samuel Beckett

Where you have nothing, there you should want nothing. — Samuel Beckett

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

If by Godot I meant God, I would have said God, and not Godot. — Samuel Beckett

I was out of sorts. They are deep, my sorts, a deep ditch, and I am not often out of them. — Samuel Beckett

The churn of stale words in the heart again
love love love thud of the old plunger
pestling the unalterable
whey of words — Samuel Beckett

Beckett wrapped a huge arm around Kyle's waist and slammed her body into his. "Sometimes when girls advertise, they get what they're asking for." Kyle twisted so her back was to his chest. "Are you threatening or promising, big daddy?" Beckett spun her around and held her face to his so their lips almost touched. The crowd went wild with perceived sexual tension. "If I was threatening you, you'd already be beggin' for your real daddy," Beckett whispered — Debra Anastasia

Estragon: We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist?
Vladimir: Yes, yes, we're magicians. — Samuel Beckett

Walking rapidly - or even slowly - through a gallery is equivalent to browsing through a bookstore and reading the blurbs. — Wendy 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

A country that has few museums is both materially poor and spiritually poor ... Museums, like theaters and libraries, are a means to freedom. — Wendy Beckett

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

Alone he watched the sky go out, dark deepen to its full. He kept his eyes on the engulfed horizon, for he knew from experience what last throes it was capable of. And in the dark he could hear better too, he could hear the sounds the long day had kept from him, human murmurs for example, and the rain on the water. — Samuel Beckett

Even farts made no impression on it. I can't help it, gas escapes from my fundament on the least pretext, it's hard not to mention it now and then, however great my distaste. One day I counted them. Three hundred and fifteen farts in nineteen hours, or an average of over sixteen farts an hour. After all it's not excessive. Four farts every fifteen minutes. It's nothing. Not even one fart every four minutes. It's unbelievable. Damn it, I hardly fart at all, I should never have mentioned it. Extraordinary how mathematics help you to know yourself. — Samuel Beckett

I happened to look up and there it was. All over and done with, at last. I sat on for a few moments with the ball in my hand and the dog yelping and pawing at me. (Pause.) Moments. Her moments, my moments (Pause.) The dog's moments. — Samuel Beckett

Notable American Women is a weird nougat of a book that suggests Coetzee, Kafka, Beckett, Barthelme, O'Brien, Orwell, Paley, Borges-and none of them exactly. Finally you just have to chew it for its own private juice. — Padgett Powell

A mug's game in my opinion and tiring on top of that, in the long run. But I lent myself to it with a good enough grace, knowing it was love, for she had told me so. — Samuel Beckett

That's how it is on this bitch of an earth. — Samuel Beckett

For the climber averse to avoidable acrobatics a given niche may lie so many paces or meters to east or west of the woman vanquished without of course his naming her thus or otherwise even in his thoughts. — Samuel Beckett

This is slow work. . . .Is it not time for my pain-killer? — Samuel Beckett

Read the great stuff, but read the stuff that isn't so great, too. Great stuff is very discouraging. If you read only Beckett and Chekhov, you'll go away and only deliver telegrams for Western Union. — Edward Albee

Don't make me out to be something worth saving. We both know I'm a waste." His voice was so quiet. "I wish I was better at telling you why you have to stay here. I wish I could put into words the part of my heart that has your name written on it. That part hurts right now. You have to be here. You love life too much. You're so important. I wish I could make you understand this." He tried to smile at her valiant efforts. "I would keep you if I could. You can sleep here, right on this couch. Beckett, I will let you hold this baby when it comes." She touched her stomach. "Does that tell you how much you mean to me? It's the only thing I can come up with." He shrugged. "Mouse would be disappointed. He'd feel like he didn't do his job if you died ... Eve loves you. Wherever she is - in this strip club - is that what you've been wishing for?" Beckett shook his head. "No, right? She loves you. You can't kill someone she loves. You just can't. — Debra Anastasia