Beckett Quotes

• I don't think there's been any writer like Samuel Beckett. He's unique. He was a most charming man and I used to send him my plays.

  Harold Pinter

  Unique, Men, Thinking

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• Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.

  Samuel Beckett

  Unhappiness, Endgame

  Samuel Beckett (2009). “Endgame and Act Without Words”, p.26, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• All I know is what the words know, and dead things, and that makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning and a middle and an end, as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead.

  Samuel Beckett

  Beauty, Long, Phrases

  Samuel Beckett (2007). “Molloy”, p.32, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.

  Samuel Beckett

  Alternatives, Sun, Murphy

  Samuel Beckett (2007). “I Can't Go On, I'll Go On: A Samuel Beckett Reader”, p.71, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• It's so nice to know where you're going, in the early stages. It almost rids you of the wish to go there.

  Samuel Beckett

  Nice, Wish, Stage

  Samuel Beckett (2007). “I Can't Go On, I'll Go On: A Samuel Beckett Reader”, p.242, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• As Beckett said, it's not enough to die, one has to be forgotten as well.

  John Hurt

  Forgotten, Enough, Said

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 27, 2000.

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• Beckett had an unerring light on things, which I much appreciated.

  Harold Pinter

  Light, Literature, Appreciated

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• Beckett does not believe in God, though he seems to imply that God has committed an unforgivable sin by not existing.

  Anthony Burgess

  Believe, Unforgivable Sin, Doe

  Anthony Burgess (1971). “The Novel To-day”

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• The first play I saw was a Samuel Beckett play which was great.

  Val Kilmer

  Play, Saws, Firsts

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• It is useless not to seek, not to want, for when you cease to seek you start to find, and when you cease to want, then life begins to ram her fish and chips down your gullet until you puke, and then the puke down your gullet until you puke the puke, and then the puked puke until you begin to like it.

  Samuel Beckett

  Rams, Useless, Want

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

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• Where do I begin? I loved working with Kate Hepburn, which was one of the highlights of my life; Working with Richard Burton in Beckett was another great joy.

  Peter O'Toole

  Joy, Highlights, Kate

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• 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

  Brother, Simple, Paris

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• I belong to that generation who, as students, had before their eyes, and were limited by, a horizon consisting of Marxism, phenomenology and existentialism. For me the break was first Beckett's Waiting for Godot, a breathtaking performance.

  Michel Foucault

  Eye, Waiting, Generations

  Michel Foucault (2000). “Death and the Labyrinth: The World of Raymond Roussel”, p.176, A&C Black

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• We possess the Canon because we are mortal and also rather belated. There is only so much time, and time must have a stop, while there is more to read than there ever was before. From the Yahwist and Homer to Freud, Kafka, and Beckett is a journey of nearly three millennia. Since that voyage goes past harbors as infinite as Dante, Chaucer, Montaigne, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy, all of whom amply compensate a lifetime's rereadings, we are in the pragmatic dilemma of excluding something else each time we read or reread extensively.

  Harold Bloom

  Past, Journey, Three

  Harold Bloom (2014). “The Western Canon”, p.45, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• People ask me all the time, "What are your influences? Are you trying to do Beckett?" It's like, "No, I'm trying to do me." Whatever that is. I don't know what that is, but that's the basis. I'm trying to be true and I'm trying to be honest.

  Charlie Kaufman

  People, Trying, Honest

  "Charlie Kaufman" by Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. October 22, 2008.

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• Poets think in short lines. Unless you're Samuel Beckett, Twitter might be more difficult for novelists.

  Kenneth Goldsmith

  Thinking, Novelists, Lines

  Source: logger.believermag.com

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• Food is a necessary component to life. People can live without Renoir, Mozart, Gaudi, Beckett, but they cannot live without food.

  Grant Achatz

  People, Renoir, Gaudi

  Interview with Michael Y. Park, www.epicurious.com. September 27, 2010.

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• I would say recently I've gotten back to perusing [Samuel] Beckett's novels. Listening to the way Donald Trump speaks without saying anything has made me think about language.

  David Duchovny

  Thinking, Listening, Way

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

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• In Kamby Bolongo Mean River damage and delusion walk hand in hand, and everything we think we know is gradually called into question. Reading like a cross between Samuel Beckett's 'The Calmative' and Gordon Lish's Dear Mr. Capote, Robert Lopez's new novel gets under your skin and latches on.

  Brian Evenson

  Reading, Mean, Thinking

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• I don't know if [Samuel] Beckett is something you ever bring to the beach - get out of the water, towel off, and start reading some of "The Unnamable." Although, because it's the kind of book you can open to any page and start reading, it is beach reading in that way.

  David Duchovny

  Beach, Book, Reading

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

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• I went and saw him [ John Hurt ] here in L.A.He did a one-man Beckett show of Krapp's Last Tape. I went back and saw him afterwards, and what an actor he is. He is so gifted.

  Judd Nelson

  Hurt, Men, Tape

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• At Princeton I wrote my junior paper on Virginia Woolf, and for my senior thesis I wrote on Samuel Beckett. I wrote some about "Between the Acts" and "Mrs. Dalloway'' but mostly about "To the Lighthouse." With Beckett I focused, perversely, on his novels, "Molloy," "Malone Dies," and "The Unnamable." That's when I decided I should never write again.

  David Duchovny

  Senior, Writing, Virginia

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

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• 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

  Book, Juice, Notable

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• [Contemporary writer] could be a kind of [Samuel] Beckett who would not be felt to be totally committed to despair.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Despair, Kind, Committed

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• I admire [Samuel] Beckett, but I am totally against him. He seeks no improvement.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Improvement, Admire

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