Samuel Beckett Quotes - Page 11

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• 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. Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors. Let us not speak well of it either. Let us not speak of it at all. It is true the population has increased.

  Samuel Beckett

  Our Generation, Somewhere Else, Laughing

  Samuel Beckett (1970). “The collected works of Samuel Beckett”

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• What kind of country is this where a woman can't weep her heart out on the highways and byways without being tormented by retired bill-brokers!

  Samuel Beckett

  Country, Heart, Bills

  Samuel Beckett (2012). “The Complete Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett”, p.168, Faber & Faber

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• Enough of acting the infant who has been told so often how he was found under a cabbage that in the end he remembers the exact spot in the garden and the kind of life he led there before joining the family circle.

  Samuel Beckett

  Garden, Circles, Atheism

  Samuel Beckett (2012). “The Unnamable”, p.33, Faber & Faber

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• Where you have nothing, there you should want nothing.

  Samuel Beckett

  Want, Should

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• Dying for dark — and the darker the Worse. Strange.

  Samuel Beckett

  Dark, Dying, Strange

  "Krapp's Last Tape and Other Shorter Plays".

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• 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

  Simple, Light, Doe

  Samuel Beckett (2009). “Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable”, p.176, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• I still smile it's not worth the trouble any more for a long time now it's not been worth the trouble the tongue spring goes into the mud I stay like this not thirsty any more the tongue goes back into the mouth it closes it has to make a straight line now it's done I've made the image.

  Samuel Beckett

  Spring, Long, Mud

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• In the landscape of extinction, precision is next to godliness.

  Samuel Beckett

  Landscape, Extinction, Next

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• You would do better, at least no worse, to obliterate texts than to blacken margins, to fill in the holes of words till all is blank and flat and the whole ghastly business looks like what it is, senseless, speechless, issueless misery.

  Samuel Beckett

  Looks, Misery, Speechless

  Samuel Beckett (2009). “Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable”, p.9, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• How do you manage it, she said, at your age? I told her I'd been saving up for her all my life.

  Samuel Beckett

  Saving Up, Age, Said

  Samuel Beckett (2009). “Krapp's Last Tape and Other Dramatic Pieces”, p.11, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Personally I have no bone to pick with graveyards.

  Samuel Beckett

  Art, Philosophy, Reality

  First Love (1973) p. 8

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• 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

  Might, Enthusiasm, Reason

  Samuel Beckett (2007). “Molloy”, p.38, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• 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

  Lying, Differences, Littles

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• Estragon: Suppose we repented. Vladimir: Repented what? Estragon: Oh...(He reflects.) We wouldn’t have to go into the details. Vladimir: Our being born?

  Samuel Beckett

  Details, Born

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• To be an artist is to fail, as no other dare fail, that failure is his world and the shrink from desertion, art and craft, good housekeeping, living.

  Samuel Beckett

  Art, World, Crafts

  Samuel Beckett, Ruby Cohn (1983). “Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment”, Calder Publications Limited

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• Estragon: I can't go on like this.
  Vladimir: That's what you think.

  Samuel Beckett

  Moving On, Encouraging, Thinking

  "Waiting for Godot". Play by Samuel Beckett, 1952.

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

  Samuel Beckett

  Sadness, Eye, Brain

  Samuel Beckett (2012). “The Unnamable”, p.7, Faber & Faber

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

  Samuel Beckett

  Writing, Silence, Matter

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• The time is perhaps not altogether too green for the vile suggestion that art has nothing to do with clarity, does not dabble in the clear and does not make clear, and more than the light of day (or night) makes the subsolar, -lunar, and -stellar excrement. Art is the sun, moon, and stars of the mind, the whole mind.

  Samuel Beckett

  Art, Stars, Moon

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• An imaginative adventure does not enjoy the same corsets as reportage.

  Samuel Beckett

  Art, Adventure, Imagination

  Samuel Beckett, Ruby Cohn (1983). “Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment”, Calder Publications Limited

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• 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

  Somewhere Else, Laughing, Tears

  "Waiting for Godot". Play by Samuel Beckett, 1952.

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• I have nothing but wastes and wilds of self-translation before me for many miserable months to come.

  Samuel Beckett

  Self, Literature, Waste

  Samuel Beckett, Alan Schneider, Maurice Harmon (1998). “No Author Better Served: The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett & Alan Schneider”, p.14, Harvard University Press

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• We wait. We are bored. (He throws up his hand.) No, don't protest, we are bored to death, there's no denying it. Good. A diversion comes along and what do we do? We let it go to waste. Come, let's get to work! (He advances towards the heap, stops in his stride.) In an instant all will vanish and we'll be alone more, in the midst of nothingness!

  Samuel Beckett

  Hands, Bored, Waiting

  Samuel Beckett (2012). “The Complete Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett”, p.72, Faber & Faber

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

  Samuel Beckett

  Time, Night, Light

  Waiting for Godot act 2 (1952)

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• 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

  Moving, Light, Darkness

  Samuel Beckett (2012). “Krapp's Last Tape and Other Shorter Plays”, p.24, Faber & Faber

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