Beckett Quotes

And if I have always behaved like a pig, the fault lies not with me but with my superiors, who corrected me only on points of detail instead of showing me the essence of the system ... ~ 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

I shall be neutral and inert. No difficulty there. Throes are the only trouble, I must be on my guard against throes. But I am less given to them now, since coming here. ~ Samuel Beckett

Sometimes, even the very best course of action fails. ~ Bernard Beckett

The only sin is the sin of being born ~ Samuel Beckett

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

The punchline of the story relates to an American academic saying of Beckett, 'He doesn't give a fuck about people. He's an artist.' At this point Beckett raised his voice above the clatter of afternoon tea and shouted, 'But I do give a fuck about people! I do give a fuck! ~ James Knowlson

And is it not strange most strange that one says of a thing that it is full, when it is not full at all, but not of a thing that is empty, if it is not empty? And perhaps the reason for that is this, that when one fills, one seldom fills quite full, for that would not be convenient, whereas when one empties one empties completely, holding the vessel upside down, and rinsing it out with boiling water if necessary, with a kind of fury. ~ Samuel Beckett

He tried not to think about his Grandma's opinion of whores and drugs. He could only believe in the pattern he'd learned from Beckett - a pattern of respect and kindness. ~ Debra Anastasia

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

She strode up some steps and banged on the door. "Now you play nice or I'll put you in the dog house."(Alannah)
"Woof."(Christopher Beckett) ~ Dana Marie Bell

It was December, I had never felt so cold, the eel soup lay heavy on my stomach, I was afraid I'd die, I turned aside to vomit, I envied them. ~ Samuel Beckett

Beckett looked Livia up and down and planted a kiss on her cheek. "Whitebread's so hot she's smokin' tonight. ~ Debra Anastasia

Imagination is the bastard child of time and ignorance ~ Bernard Beckett

Beer might make a smart man dull, but coffee is worse because it can delude a dull man into thinking he's smart. ~ Galen Beckett

Ugly's still ugly, no matter how you see it."
"An interesting assertion. Justify it."
"You bring twenty people in here," Adam told him, "and they'll all say the same thing. They'll all say you're ugly."
"Bring in twenty of me," Art said, "and we'd all say your ass is prettier than your face."
"There aren't twenty of you."
"No, you're right. I'm unique. So I can safely say that all androids find you ugly. Not all humans find me ugly. So, technically, I'm better looking than you, using objective criteria. ~ Bernard Beckett

It's notorious, ah you can't deny it, some people are lucky, born of a wet dream and dead before morning ~ Samuel Beckett

The essential is never to arrive anywhere, never to be anywhere. The essential is to go on squirming forever at the edge of the line, as long as there are waters and banks and ravening in heaven a sporting God to plague his creature, per pro his chosen shits. I've swallowed three hooks and am still hungry. Hence the howls. What a joy to know where one is, and where one will stay, without being there. Nothing to do but strech out comfortably on the rack, in the blissful knowledge you are nobody for eternity. ~ 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

But time passes. Fear becomes a memory. Terror becomes routine; it loses its grip. ~ Bernard Beckett

To what will love not stoop! ~ Samuel Beckett

My time is limited. It is thence that one fine day, when all nature smiles and shines, the rack lets loose its black unforgettable cohorts and sweeps away the blue for ever. My situation is truly delicate. What fine things, what momentous things, i am going to miss through fear, fear of falling back into the old error, fear of not finishing in time, fear of revelling, for the last time, in a last outpouring of misery, impotence and hate. The forms are many in which the unchanging seeks relief from its formlessness. ~ Samuel Beckett

the intolerance of reproductive rights for women puts the rights of potential humans above the rights of actual living, breathing humans. ~ Cooper S. Beckett

(Looking at the tree) Pity we haven't got a bit of rope. ~ Samuel Beckett

Simple shit makes this chick crap bubbles and rainbows -Beckett ~ Debra Anastasia

God is love. Yes or no? No. ~ Samuel Beckett

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 the 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. ~ 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

Beckett wrapped his arm around the one Cole offered him. "Bro, go to Kyle. Stay out of this next fight. I won't be able to deal with you behind me and Blake in front of me. You can't ask me to decide which one of you to defend first. Please, Cole. Give me peace of mind. ~ Debra Anastasia

It is better to adopt the simplest explanation, even if it is not simple, even if it does not explain very much. A bright light is not necessary, a taper is all one needs to live in strangeness, if it faithfully burns. ~ Samuel Beckett

Beckett took a step back. "First things first, you weren't lying. She's absolutely gorgeous." Beckett let his gaze roam from Livia's boots to the top of her head. "And you know I'm an expert. ~ Debra Anastasia

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. To ~ Samuel Beckett

I'm a school teacher, and later on, well past my formal education, I became very interested in science. ~ Bernard Beckett

Beckett now got half the beating he used to get. Rick didn't know that with every punch he was pounding his own coffin closed, but Beckett knew. ~ Debra Anastasia

ESTRAGON: In the meantime let us try and converse calmly, since we are incapable of keeping silent.
VLADIMIR: You're right, we're inexhaustible.
ESTRAGON: It's so we won't think.
VLADIMIR: We have that excuse.
ESTRAGON: It's so we won't hear.
VLADIMIR: We have our reasons.
ESTRAGON: All the dead voices. ~ Samuel Beckett

I them, the master, myself, we are all innocent, enough. Innocent of what, no one knows, of wanting to know, wanting to be able, of all this noise about nothing, of this long sin against the silence that enfolds us, we wont ask any more, what it covers, this innocence we have fallen to, it covers everything, all faults, all questions, it puts an end to questions. ~ Samuel Beckett

An eye will tend to behold what its owner expects to see. ~ Galen Beckett

Friendship, according to Proust, is the negation of that irremediable solitude to which every human being is condemned. ~ Samuel Beckett

Incontinent the void. The zenith. Evening again. When not night it will be evening. Death again of deathless day. On one hand embers. On the other ashes. Day without end won and lost. Unseen. ~ Samuel Beckett

I write with teenagers in mind. ~ Bernard Beckett

All hangs together, I am in chains. ~ 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

It was a denim jacket. With this cover in place, Mouse hastily got his pants back in order. Instead of a teacher, as he'd expected, the new kid, Beckett Taylor, had bestowed dignity upon him. ~ Debra Anastasia

I am interested in the shape of ideas, even if I do not believe in them ~ Samuel Beckett

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

It is easy and amusing to make promises one knows one can never keep, but to offer an oath when one knows it must be obeyed - that is courage. ~ Galen 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 rewards that will flow from a successful shift to a low carbon economy are high. Neither governments nor business can afford to let these opportunities pass them by ~ Margaret Beckett

Eccentric and secret genius that he was, Bosch not only moved the heart, but scandalized it into full awareness. The sinister and monstrous things that he brought forth are the hidden creatures of our inward self-love: he externalizes the ugliness within, and so his misshapen demons have an effect beyond curiosity. We feel a hateful kinship with them. The Ship of Fools is not about other people. It is about us. ~ Wendy Beckett

Sometimes a truth is so precious that it cannot be disowned. ~ Galen Beckett

What is more true than anything else? To swim is true and to sink is true. One cannot speak any more of being, one must speak onlyof the mess. ~ Samuel Beckett

Blake laughed as Beckett set him back on the seat and pointed a thick finger at the organ. "You ass-f**k this bitch. Ass-f**k it." Beckett peeked over the balcony at Cole below. "Sorry, baby. I have too much dirty in me. ~ Debra Anastasia

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. ~ Samuel Beckett

My favourite writer is Beckett and I keep going back to wallow in his work like a deep pool of dark humour or like an oxygen tank when you can't breath in a world consumed by piety, hypocrisy and self-satisfaction. ~ Simon Critchley

Once a certain degree of insight has been reached," said Wylie, "all men talk, when talk they must, the same tripe. ~ Samuel Beckett

What about an amnesiac, who awakes having lost his memories and must learn of his past from scratch? Has he died? How can we be just memories? How does that leave us with enough? ~ Bernard Beckett

She began stroking my ankles. I considered kicking her in the cunt. ~ Samuel Beckett

Hold the old holding hand. Hold and be held. Plod on and never recede. Slowly with never a pause plod on and never recede. ~ 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

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

The blue face! The obscene protrusion of the tongue! The tumefaction of the penis! The penis, well now, that's a surprise, I'd forgotten I had one. What a pity I have no arms, there might still be something to be wrung from it. No, 'tis better thus. At my age, to start manstuprating again, it would be indecent. And fruitless. And yet one can never tell. With a yo heave yo, concentrating with all my might on a horse's rump, at the moment when the tail raises, who knows, I might not go altogether empty-handed away. Heaven, I almost felt it flutter! ~ Samuel Beckett

VLADIMIR: Moron!
ESTRAGON: Vermin!
VLADIMIR: Abortion!
ESTRAGON: Morpion!
VLADIMIR: Sewer-rat!
ESTRAGON: Curate!
VLADIMIR: Cretin!
ESTRAGON: (with finality). Crritic!
VLADIMIR: Oh!
He wilts, vanquished, and turns away. ~ Samuel Beckett

But he found it strange to think of these little changes of scene, the little gains, the little losses, the thing brought, the thing removed, the light given, the light taken, and all the vain offerings to the hour, ~ Samuel Beckett

Prose poetry is not set to a melody or music so there's something freeing about it. ~ William 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

The Australian Gerald Murnane, a genius on the level of Beckett, is known in Australia and Sweden but almost nowhere else. And I loved Reality Hunger, David Shields' recent novel take on the art of the novel. ~ Teju Cole

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

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

After a noticeable silence, he'd recently published a book of technically baffling poems, with line breaks so arbitrary and frequent as to be useless, arrhythmic. On the page they look like some of Charles Bukowski's skinny, chatty, muttering-stuttering antiverses. Impossibly, Mark's words make music, the faraway strains of an irresistible jazz. It's plain to any reader, within a few lines - well, go read the poems and see, Marcus Ahearn traffics with the ineffable. He makes the mind of the speaker present, in that here-and-now where the reader actually reads - that place. Such a rare thing. Samuel Beckett. Jean Follain, Ionesco - the composer Billy Strayhorn. Mark calls his process "psychic improvisation" and referred me to the painter Paul Klee; the term was Klee's. "You just get out a pen and a notebook and let your mind go long," he told me. ~ Denis Johnson

He locked eyes with Livia, and his face became serious. "Com'ere, Whitebread." He held out his hand and enveloped her as soon as she got close.
She started to cry softly in his chest.
"Don't cry. I'm so motherfucking proud of you. You hold your beautiful face up. Stand proud."
He rubbed her back and motioned Blake over with his head. Beckett twirled her into Blake's arms. She looked back to give him a sad smile from her warm place by Blake's heart. ~ Debra Anastasia

Think of that! He removes his hat without misgiving, he unbuttons his coat and sits down, proffered all pure and open to the long joys of being himself, like a basin to a vomit. ~ Samuel Beckett

To not hope, to expect nothing, to dismiss at every turn - these had been her only protection against certain devastation. Disappointment could not ensue when one failed to gain what one had never wished for. ~ Galen Beckett

Astride of a grave and a difficult birth.
Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave digger puts on the forceps.
We have time to grow old.
The air is full of our cries.
But habit is a great deadener.
At me too someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, He is sleeping, he knows nothing.
Let him sleep on. ~ Samuel Beckett

All roads were right for me, a wrong road was an event, for me. ~ 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 turmoil of the day freezes in a thousand absurd postures. ~ Samuel Beckett

Vladimir: What do we do now?
Estragon: Wait.
Vladimir: Yes, but while waiting.
Estragon: What about hanging ourselves?
Vladimir: Hmm. It'd give us an erection.
Estragon: (highly excited). An erection!
Vladimir: With all that follows.
Where it falls mandrakes grow.
That's why they shriek when you pull them up.
Did you not know that?
Estragon: Let's hang ourselves immediately! ~ 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

So he is. So that faint uneasiness lost. That faint hope. To one with so few occasions to feel. So inapt to feel. Asking nothing better in so far as he can ask anything than to feel nothing. Is it desirable? No. Would he gain thereby in companionability? No. Then let him not be named H. Let him be again as he was. The hearer. Unnamable. You. ~ 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

The inspection once completed it is usual to put everything carefully back in place as far as possible. It is enjoined by a certain ethics not to do unto others what coming from them might give offence. ~ Samuel Beckett

Beckett, you're doing this for people who don't even know you're protecting them. We're in the shade here. I can do this. Let me do this. I can't stand by and watch.
Beckett thought for a moment, saying nothing. Blake had taken the beating like a pro. Too good to be his first time. ~ Debra Anastasia

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

I'd say Ernest Hemingway would be a blast to get drunk with. ~ William Beckett

That's who he was - not who he is now - and it sounds like you need to decide if you can deal with what he used to do. ~ Georgia Cates

Words fail, there are times when even they fail. ~ Samuel Beckett

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

Let's go." "We can't." "Why not?" "We're waiting for Godot. ~ Samuel Beckett

For why be discouraged, one of the thieves was saved, that is a generous percentage. ~ Samuel Beckett

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

So that I would have hesitated to exclaim, with my finger up my arse-hole for example, Jesus Christ, it's much worse than yesterday, I can hardly believe it is the same hole. ~ Samuel Beckett

Oh it is not without scathe that one is gentle, courteous, reasonable, patient, day after day, year after year. ~ Samuel Beckett

After smiling for a family photo with his daughters, John announced, "All right. I talked to the boys. Beckett, you can stay for the reception." He nodded while he granted the reprieve. "Afterward, we'll bring you in for questioning."
John turned to leave, but Blake caught his attention. "Sir, thank you. It means the world to me that he's here. ~ Debra Anastasia

Beckett gives me his legendary calculated stare. He really seems to think that makes him look superior. What am I going to do, squeal like a baby because of his narrowed eyes? Um, think not. ~ Brandy Nacole

Spend the years of learning squandering
Courage for the years of wandering
Through a world politely turning
From the loutishness of learning. ~ Samuel Beckett

...saying again there is a last
even of last times
last times of begging
last times of loving
of knowing not pretending
a last even of last times of saying
if you do not love me I shall not be loved
if I do not love you I shall not love
...
terrified again
of not loving
of loving and not you
of being loved and not by you ~ Samuel Beckett

I wasn't really writing anything that I felt was worth it at the end, but then certain things sparked me as a solo writer - to be able to try new things and experiment, and ultimately challenge myself as a performer and as a songwriter and just to commit to ideas, and not be afraid to be myself. ~ William Beckett

Listen, Mouse wants us to find Blake," Eve pleaded. "That's why he's pointing. That's why he took out three assholes on his own like a gladiator. I want to sit and cry. I want to get him in the back of his own hearse and treat him like a goddamn king. But right now, we're going to finish what he started."
Beckett stood and nodded. As wrong as it felt, he needed to leave his friend - no, my brother - lying dead here. At least for now. ~ Debra Anastasia

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

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