Samuel Beckett quotes - page 3

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)
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. View quote
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. View quote
Samuel Beckett
There is something ... more important in life than punctuality, and that is decorum. View quote
Samuel Beckett
To him who has nothing it is forbidden not to relish filth. View quote
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. View quote
Samuel Beckett
All this business of a labour to accomplish, before I can end, of words to say, a truth to recover, in order to say it, before I can end, of an imposed task, once known, long neglected, finally forgotten, to perform, before I can be done with speaking, done with listening, I invented it all, in the hope it would console me, help me to go on, allow me to think of myself as somewhere on a road, moving, between a beginning and an end, gaining ground, losing ground, getting lost, but somehow in the long run making headway. View quote
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. View quote
Samuel Beckett
All I say cancels out, I'll have said nothing. View quote
Samuel Beckett
We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment. How many people can boast as much? View quote
Samuel Beckett
Spend the years of learning squandering Courage for the years of wandering Through a world politely turning From the loutishness of learning. (Samuel Beckett)
My mistakes are my life. View quote
Samuel Beckett
Nell: Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.Nagg: Oh?Nell: Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing. Yes, it's like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don't laugh any more. View quote
Samuel Beckett
Don't touch me! Don't question me! Don't speak to me! Stay with me! View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
Samuel Beckett
Tears, that could be the tone, if they weren't so easy, the true tone and tenor at last. View quote
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)
I am such a good man, at bottom, such a good man, how is it that nobody ever noticed it? View quote
Samuel Beckett
Clov: When I fall I'll weep for happiness. View quote
Samuel Beckett
There is a little of everything, apparently, in nature, and freaks are common. View quote
Samuel Beckett
They were most correct, according to their god. View quote
Samuel Beckett