Samuel Beckett

Ireland
13 Apr 1906 // 22 Dec 1989
Writer

Quotes

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For to know nothing is nothing, not to want to know anything likewise, but to be beyond knowing anything, to know you are beyond knowing anything, that is when peace enters in, to the soul of the incurious seeker.

Molloy
Life is habit. Or rather life is a succession of habits.

Proust
And truly it little matters what I say, this or that or any other thing. Saying is inventing. Wrong, very rightly wrong. You invent nothing, you think you are inventing, you think you are escaping, and all you do is stammer out your lesson, the remnants of a pensum one day got by heart and long forgotten, life without tears, as it is wept.

Molloy
If there is one question I dread, to which I have never been able to invent a satisfactory reply, it is the question what am I doing.

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

Molloy
Dear incomprehension, it's thanks to you I'll be myself, in the end.

The Unnamable
There's no lack of void.

Waiting for Godot
We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. But habit is a great deadener.

Waiting for Godot
We wait. We are bored. (He throws up his hand.) No, don't protest, we are bored to death, there's no denying it. Good. A diversion comes along and what do we do? We let it go to waste. Come, let's get to work! (He advances towards the heap, stops in his stride.) In an instant all will vanish and we'll be alone more, in the midst of nothingness!

Waiting for Godot
The essential doesn't change.

Waiting for Godot
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