Samuel Beckett Quotes

He was split, one part of him never left this mental chamber that pictured itself as a sphere full of light fading into dark, because there was no way out. But motion in this world depended on rest in the world outside. A man is in bed, wanting to sleep. A rat is behind the wall at his head, wanting to move. The man hears the rat fidget and cannot sleep, the rat hears the man fidget and dares not move. They are both unhappy, one fidgeting and the other waiting, or both happy, the rat moving and the man sleeping.

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

Birth was the death of him.

there is [...]
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

Don't touch me! Don't question me! Don't speak to me! Stay with me!

Poor Willie - running out - ah well - can't be helped - just one of those old things - another of those old things - just can't be cured - cannot be cured - ah yes - poor dear Willie - good Lord! - good God! - ah well - no worse - no better, no worse - no change - no pain - hardly any - great thing that - nothing like it - pure ... what? - what? - ah yes - poor Willie - no zest - for anything - no interest - in life - poor dear Willie - sleep for ever - marvellous gift - in my opinion - always said so - wish I had it

No, I regret nothing, all I regret is having been born, dying is such a long tiresome business I always found.

There are two moments worthwhile in writing, the one when you start and the other when you throw it in the waste-paper basket.

At no moment do I know what I’m talking about, nor of whom, nor of where, nor how, nor why, but I could employ fifty wretches for this sinister operation and still be short of the fifty-first, to close the circuit, that I know, without knowing what it means.

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.)

One day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second.

Hamm: If I could sleep I might make love. I'd go into the woods. My eyes would see … the sky, the earth. I'd run, run, they wouldn't catch me.

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

كان يجب أن أقول ذلك منذ زمن ،إني أكتب عن ذاتي بالقلم نفسه وفي الكراسة عينها، ولكن لم أعد أنا فأنا شخص آخر بدأ للتو حياته !

That is one of the many reasons why I avoid speaking as much as possible. For I always say either too much or too little, which is a terrible thing for a man with a passion for truth like mine.