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

  Val Kilmer

  Play, Saws, Firsts

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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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• 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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• Waiting for Godot was not allowed. Neither was Henry Miller. The Soviets condemned them both. Miller would have been used as an example of decadence, being a very good analyst of how terrible and monstrous American culture was. That they liked, but they wouldn't publish him. I guess it must have been the sex. With Beckett, it must have been the hopelessness.

  Barney Rosset

  Sex, Waiting, Example

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• Gertrude Stein, all courage and will, is a soldier of minimalism. Her work, unlike the resonating silences in the art of Samuel Beckett, embodies in its loquacity and verbosity the curious paradox of the minimalist form. This art of the nuance in repetition and placement she shares with the orchestral compositions of Philip Glass.

  Elizabeth Hardwick

  Art, Glasses, Silence

  Elizabeth Hardwick (1998). “Sight-readings: American Fictions”, Random House Incorporated

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• I have 800 books of just Samuel Beckett's work, tons of his correspondence, personal letters that he wrote. I have copies of plays he used when he directed, so all of his handwritten notes are in the corners of the page.

  John Larroquette

  Book, Play, Letters

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• Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot,' billed as 'the laugh sensation of two continents,' made its American debut at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, in Miami, Florida, in 1956. My father, Bert Lahr, was playing Estragon, one of the two bowler-hatted tramps who pass the time in a lunar landscape as they wait in vain for the arrival of a Mr. Godot.

  John Lahr

  Father, Florida, Two

  "Panic Attack". www.newyorker.com. May 18, 2009.

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• Opens up a whole new view of Beckett. The strong mutual attraction between Beckett and Cunard may help explain the leftist political views he expressed both in these superb and long-neglected translations for Negro and elsewhere in his work.

  Barney Rosset

  Strong, Views, Mutual Attraction

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• These are your beautiful days, Julia Beckett," he promised softly.

  Susanna Kearsley

  Beautiful, Julia, Your Beautiful

  Susanna Kearsley (2009). “Mariana”, p.268, Allison & Busby

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• Read the great stuff, but read the stuff that isn't so great, too. Great stuff is very discouraging. If you read only Beckett and Chekhov, you'll go away and only deliver telegrams for Western Union.

  Edward Albee

  Going Away, Unions, Stuff

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• You got used to running things on your own." "What could he do about it when he's in Iraq and the car breaks down in Kansas?" Beckett gave her a long, quiet look. "I'm not in Iraq." "No, and it has to be said, I'm not in Kansas anymore." She lifted her hands, then let them fall. "It's not that I've forgotten how to be a couple, but that my experience in being part of one is different from yours. Maybe from most people's. And I've been on my own a long time." "Now you're not. I'm not fighting a war, and I'm right here." Needed to be here, he realized, with her.

  Nora Roberts

  Running, Couple, War

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• According to Beckett's or Kafka's law, there is immobility beyond movement: beyond standing up, there is sitting down, and beyond sitting down, lying down, beyond which one finally dissipates.

  Gilles Deleuze

  Lying, Law, Sitting Down

  Gilles Deleuze (2005). “Francis Bacon”, p.29, A&C Black

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• I am not interested in living in a city where there isn't a production by Samuel Beckett running.

  Edward Albee

  Running, Cities, Not Interested

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• My son is actually named after Beck, the musician. We heard Beck on the radio and thought that was a good nickname for a child. We named our son Beckett so we could call him Beck - we reverse engineered. And then after he was born and I saw the name on the birth certificate I realized Beckett was a really pretentious name, way too literary. Luckily he's grown into it. We nearly named my second son Dashiell. Can you imagine? Beckett and Dashiell. It would have been a disaster of pretentiousness.

  Lauren Groff

  Children, Son, Musician

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• There's always a host of voices you're inspired by. I love Don DeLillo, and I love Isaac Bashevis Singer, and I love Beckett, and I love Pinter. He's one of the funniest voices in English literature since Dickens.

  Dylan Moran

  Voice, Literature, Singers

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