Samuel Beckett Quotes - Page 9

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Over, over, there is a soft place in my heart for all that is over, no, for the being over, words have been my only loves, not many.

Samuel Beckett

Heart, Language, Only Love

Samuel Beckett (1974). “First Love and Other Shorts”, p.48, Grove Press

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I open the door of the cell and go. I am so bowed I only see my feet, if I open my eyes, and between my legs a little trail of black dust. I say to myself that the earth is extinguished, though I never saw it lit.

Samuel Beckett

Eye, Doors, Cells

Samuel Beckett (2012). “The Complete Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett”, p.128, Faber & Faber

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I did not want to write, but I had to resign myself to it in the end.

Samuel Beckett

Writing, Want, Ends

Samuel Beckett (2009). “Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable”, p.201, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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Watt's concern, deep as it appeared, was not after all what the figure was, in reality, but with what the figure appeared to be, in reality.

Samuel Beckett

Reality, Figures, Realism

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Where am I, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.

Samuel Beckett

Silence, Identity, Goes On

The Unnamable (1959)

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I write about myself with the same pencil and in the same exercise book as about him. It is no longer I, but another whose life is just beginning.

Samuel Beckett

Book, Writing, Exercise

Samuel Beckett (2009). “Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable”, p.201, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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It is suicide to be abroad. But what it is to be at home, ... what it is to be at home? A lingering dissolution.

Samuel Beckett

Suicide, Home, Lingering

All That Fall (1957) p. 10

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Be again, be again. (Pause.) All that old misery. (Pause.) Once wasn't enough for you.

Samuel Beckett

Misery, Enough, Pauses

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

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You cried for night - it falls. Now cry in darkness.

Samuel Beckett

Fall, Night, Darkness

Samuel Beckett (2012). “The Complete Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett”, p.129, Faber & Faber

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Was I asleep? Had I slept?

Samuel Beckett

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Sloth is all passions the most powerful.

Samuel Beckett

Powerful, Passion, Sloth

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Abode where lost bodies roam each searching for its lost one.

Samuel Beckett

Loneliness, Lost Ones, Body

Samuel Beckett (1995). “The Complete Short Prose, 1929-1989”, p.202, Grove Press

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She felt, as she felt so often with Murphy, spattered with words that went dead as soon as they sounded; each word obliterated, before it had time to make sense, by the word that came next; so that in the end she did not know what had been said. It was like difficult music heard for the first time.

Samuel Beckett

Next, Firsts, Ends

Samuel Beckett (2007). “I Can't Go On, I'll Go On: A Samuel Beckett Reader”, p.96, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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James Joyce: His writing is not about something. It is the thing itself.

Samuel Beckett

Writing, Joyce

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The search for the means to put an end to things, an end to speech, is what enables the discourse to continue.

Samuel Beckett

Mean, Speech, Ends

Samuel Beckett (2012). “The Unnamable”, p.12, Faber & Faber

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My keepers, why keepers, I'm in no danger of stirring an inch, ah I see, it's to make me think I'm a prisoner, frantic with corporeality, rearing to get out and away.

Samuel Beckett

Thinking, Danger, Inches

Samuel Beckett (1967). “Stories & Texts for Nothing”, p.101, Grove Press

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I always thought old age would be a writer’s best chance. Whenever I read the late work of Goethe or W. B. Yeats I had the impertinence to identify with it. Now, my memory’s gone, all the old fluency’s disappeared. I don’t write a single sentence without saying to myself, ‘It’s a lie!’ So I know I was right. It’s the best chance I’ve ever had.

Samuel Beckett

Memories, Lying, Writing

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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

Truth, Swim, Speak

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Dublin university contains the cream of Ireland: Rich and thick.

Samuel Beckett

Funny, Hilarious, Ireland And The Irish

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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

Mother, Rain, Thinking

Samuel Beckett (2009). “Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable”, p.23, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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Yes, light, there is no other word for it.

Samuel Beckett

Light

Samuel Beckett (2010). “The Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett: All That Fall, Act Without Words, Krapp's Last Tape, Cascando, Eh Joe, Footfall, Rockaby and others”, p.62, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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Absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is, let alone the dullness of it and the pomposities of it.

Samuel Beckett

Men, Vices, Virtue

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They never lynch children, babies, no matter what they do they are whitewashed in advance.

Samuel Beckett

Baby, Children, Matter

Samuel Beckett (2007). “I Can't Go On, I'll Go On: A Samuel Beckett Reader”, p.218, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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We lose our hair, our teeth! Our bloom, our ideals.

Samuel Beckett

Time, Hair, Age

Samuel Beckett (2012). “The Complete Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett”, p.94, Faber & Faber

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To find a form that accommodates the shape of the mess, that is the task of the artist now.

Samuel Beckett

Artist, Mess

Source: therumpus.net

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Born: April 13, 1906
Died: December 22, 1989
Occupation: Novelist
Cite this Page: Citation

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