Samuel Beckett Best Quotes

Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn't want them back.

Yes, in my life, since we must call it so, there were three things, the inability to speak, the inability to be silent, and solitude, that’s what I’ve had to make the best of.

When a man in a forest thinks he is going forward in a straight line, in reality he is going in a circle, I did my best to go in a circle, hoping to go in a straight line.

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.

Yes, I was my father and I was my son, I asked myself questions and answered as best I could, I had it told to me evening after evening, the same old story I knew by heart and couldn't believe, or we walked together, hand in hand, silent, sunk in our worlds, each in his worlds, the hands forgotten in each other. That's how I've held out till now. And this evening again it seems to be working, I'm in my arms, I'm holding myself in my arms, without much tenderness, but faithfully, faithfully. Sleep now, as under that ancient lamp, all twined together, tired out with so much talking, so much listening, so much toil and play.

It was a strange room, the door hanging off its hinges, and yet a telephone. But its last occupant was a harlot, long past her best, which had been scarlet.

I do nothing, with as little shame as satisfaction. It is the state that suits me best. I write the odd poem when it is there, that is the only thing worth doing. There is an ecstasy of accidia — will-less in a grey tumult of idées obscures. There is an end to the temptation of light, its polite scorchings & consolations. It is good for children & insects. There is an end of making up one's mind, like a pound of tea, an end of patting the butter of consciousness into opinions. The real consciousness is the chaos, a grey commotion of mind, with no premises or conclusions or problems or solutions or cases or judgments.

Lousse tried to make him say, Pretty Polly! I think it was too late. He listened, his head on one side, pondered, then said, Fuck the son of a bitch. It was clear he was doing his best.

It is to be hoped the time will come, thank God, in some circles it already has, when language is best used where it is most efficiently abused. Since we cannot dismiss it all at once, at least we do not want to leave anything undone that may contribute to its disrepute. To drill one hole after another into it until that which lurks behind, be it something or nothing, starts seeping through - I cannot imagine a higher goal for today's writer.

[H]aving heard, or more probably read somewhere, in the days when I thought I would be well advised to educate myself, or amuse myself, or stupefy myself, or kill time, that when a man in a forest thinks he is going forward in a straight line, in reality he is going in a circle, I did my best to go in a circle, hoping in this way to go in a straight line.

I didn't understand women at that period. I still don't for that matter. Nor men either. Nor animals either. What I understand best, which is not saying much, are my pains.

Oh, they weren't notions like yours, they were notions like mine, all spasm, sweat and trembling, without an atom of common sense or lucidity. But they were the best I had.

Samuel Beckett put it best: “Go on failing. Go on. Only next time, try to fail better.

No matter, no matter how, they are doing the best they can, with the miserable means at their disposal, a voice, a little light, poor devils, that's what they're paid for, they say, No sign of hardening, no sign of softening, impossible to say, no matter, it's a good average, we only have to continue, one day he'll understand, one day he'll thrill, the little spasm will come, a change in the eye, and cast him up among us. To be on the watch and never sight, to listen for the moan that never comes, that's not a life worth living either. And yet it's theirs.

The sound I liked best had nothing noble about it. It was the barking of the dogs, at night, in the clusters of hovels up in the hills, where the stone-cutters lived, like generations of stone-cutters before them. it came down to me where I lay, in the house in the plain, wild and soft, at the limit of earshot, soon weary. The dogs of the valley replied with their gross bay all fangs and jaws and foam...

the glory days of Shakespeare and Company were done. Its demise marked the end of the exuberance and freedom of modernist innovation. Old-style masculine domination steamrollered in with murder, repression, punishment and with winning defined by who best killed and destroyed. Sylvia talked of the ‘insanity’ of war. Samuel Beckett said she had a permanent worried look. ‘Everyone in Paris wants to flee to America away from wars and dictators,’ Sylvia wrote to her father. Bryher assured her that whatever happened to Shakespeare and Company, she would look after her. ‘I tried always to do what I could for the real artists and especially for the woman artist,’ she said. These women artists were lesbian.

Yes, I represent for her a tidy little capital and, if I should ever happen to die, I am convinced she would be genuinely annoyed. (This should help me to live.) I like to fancy that when the fatal hour of reckoning comes (if it ever does), and my debt to nature is paid at last, she will do her best to prevent the removal, from where it now stands, of the old vase in which I shall have accomplished my vicissitudes. And perhaps in the place now occupied by my head she will set a melon, or a vegetable-marrow, or a big pineapple with its little tuft (or better still, I don't know why, a swede), in memory of me. Then I shall vanish quite (as is so often the way with people when they are buried).

Linda Rubright’s definition of “Iterative Process” is “Total fail. Repeat.” Creators must be willing to fail and repeat until they find the step that arrives. Samuel Beckett said it best: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

My sometime friend Belacqua enlivened the last phase of his solipsism, before he toed the line and began to relish the world, with the belief that the best thing he had to do was to move constantly from place to place. He did not know how this conclusion had been gained, but that it was not thanks to his preferring one place to another he felt sure. He was pleased to think that he could give what he called the Furies the slip by merely setting himself in motion.

I. What value is to be attached to the theory that Eve sprang, not from Adam's rib, but from a tumour in the fat of his leg (arse?). 2. Did the serpent crawl or, as Comestor affirms, walk upright? 3. Did Mary conceive through the ear, as Augustine and Adobard assert? 4. How much longer are we to hang about waiting for the antechrist? 5. Does it really matter which hand is employed to absterge the podex? 6. What is one to think of the Irish oath sworn by the natives with the right hand on the relics of the saints and the left on the v i r ile member? 7. Does nature observe the sabbath? 8. Is it true that the devils do not feel the pains of hell? 9. The algebraic theology of Craig. What is one to think of this? 10. Is it true that the infant Saint-Roch refused suck on Wednesdays and Fridays? II. What is one to think of the excommunication of vermin in t he sixteenth century? 12. Is one to approve of the Italian cobbler Lovat who, having cut off his testicles, crucified himself. 13. What was God doing with himself before the creation? 14. Might not the beatific vision become a source of boredom, in the long run? 15. Is it true that Judas' torments are suspended on Saturdays? 16. What if the mass for the dead were read over the living? And I recited the pretty quietist Pater, Our Father who art no more in heaven than on earth or in hell, I neither want nor desire that thy name be hallowed, thou knowest best what suits thee. Etc. The middle and the end are very pretty. It was in this frivolous and charming world that I took refuge, when my cup ran over. But I asked myself other questions concerning me perhaps more c!osely. As for example. 1. Why had I not borrowed a few shillings from Gaber? 2. Why had I obeyed the order to go home? 3. What had become of Molloy? 4. Same question for me. 5. What would become of me? 6. Same question for my son. 7. Was his mother in heaven? 8. Same question for my mother. 9. Would I go to heaven ? 10. Would we all meet again in heaven one day, I. my mother, my son. his mother, Youdi, Gaber. Molloy, his mother, Yerk, Murphy, Watt, Camier and the rest? 11. What had become of my hens. my bees? Was my grey hen still living? 12. Zulu, the Elsner sisters, were they still living? 13. Was Youdi's business address still 8, Acacia Square? What if I wrote to him? What if I went to see him? I would explain to him. What would I explain to him? I would crave his forgive ness. Forgiveness for what? 14. Was not the winter exceptionally severe? 15. How long had I gone now without either confession or communion? 16. What was the name of the martyr who, being in prison, loaded with chains, covered with wounds and vermin. unable to stir, celebrated the consecration on his stomach and gave himself absolution? 17. What would I do until my death? Was there no means of hastening this, without falling into a state of sin? But before I launch my body properly so-called across these icy. then. with the thaw, muddy solitudes. I wish to say that I often thought of my bees, more often than of my hens. and God knows I thought often of my hemore c!osely. As for example. 1. Why had I not borrowed a few shillings from Gaber? 2. Why had I obeyed the order to go home? 3. What had become of Molloy? 4. Same question for me. 5. What would become of me? 6. Same question for my son. 7. Was his mother in heaven? 8. Same question for my mother. 9. Would I go to heaven ? 10. Would we all meet again in heaven one day, I. my mother, my son. his mother, Youdi, Gaber. Molloy, his mother, Yerk, Murphy, Watt, Camier and the rest? 11. What had become of my hens. my bees? Was my grey hen still living? 12. Zulu, the Elsner sisters, were they still living? 13. Was Youdi's business address still 8, Acacia Square? What if I wrote to him? What if I went to see him? I would explain to him. What would I explain to him? I would crave his forgive ness. Forgiveness for what?

I. What value is to be attached to the theory that Eve sprang, not from Adam's rib, but from a tumour in the fat of his leg (arse?). 2. Did the serpent crawl or, as Comestor affirms, walk upright? 3. Did Mary conceive through the ear, as Augustine and Adobard assert? 4. How much longer are we to hang about waiting for the antechrist? 5. Does it really matter which hand is employed to absterge the podex? 6. What is one to think of the Irish oath sworn by the natives with the right hand on the relics of the saints and the left on the v i r ile member? 7. Does nature observe the sabbath? 8. Is it true that the devils do not feel the pains of hell? 9. The algebraic theology of Craig. What is one to think of this? 10. Is it true that the infant Saint-Roch n:fused suck on Wed nesdays and Fridays? II. What is one to think of the excommunication of vermin in t he sixteenth century? 12. Is one to approve of the Italian cobbler Lovat who, having cut off his testicles, crucified himself. 13. What was God doing with himself before the creation? 14. Might not the beatific vision become a source of boredom, in the long run? 15. Is it true that Judas' torments are suspended on Saturdays? 16. What if the mass for the dead were read over the living? And I recited the pretty quietist Pater, Our Father who art no more in heaven than on earth or in hell, I neither want nor desire that thy name be hallowed, thou knowest best what suits thee. Etc. The middle and the end are very pretty. It was in this frivolous and charming world that I took refuge, when my cup ran over. But I asked myself other questions concerning me perhaps more c!osely. As for example. 1. Why had I not borrowed a few shillings from Gaber? 2. Why had I obeyed the order to go home? 3. What had become of Molloy? 4. Same question for me. 5. What would become of me? 6. Same question for my son. 7. Was his mother in heaven? 8. Same question for my mother. 9. Would I go to heaven ? 10. Would we all meet again in heaven one day, I. my mother, my son. his mother, Youdi, Gaber. Molloy, his mother, Yerk, Murphy, Watt, Camier and the rest? 11. What had become of my hens. my bees? Was my grey hen still living? 12. Zulu, the Elsner sisters, were they still living? 13. Was Youdi's business address still 8, Acacia Square? What if I wrote to him? What if I went to see him? I would explain to him. What would I explain to him? I would crave his forgive ness. Forgiveness for what? 14. Was not the winter exceptionally severe? 15. How long had I gone now without either confession or communion? 16. What was the name of the martyr who, being in prison, loaded with chains, covered with wounds and vermin. unable to stir, celebrated the consecration on his stomach and gave himself absolution? 17. What would I do until my death? Was there no means of hastening this, without falling into a state of sin? But before I launch my body properly so-called across these icy. then. with the thaw, muddy solitudes. I wish to say that I often thought of my bees, more often than of my hens. and God knows I thought often of my hens. And I thought above all of their dance, for my bees danced, oh not as men dance, to amuse themselves. but in a different way