746 Quotes by Samuel Beckett

Ah, the old questions, the old answers, there’s nothing like them!

From things about to disappear I turn away in time. To watch them out of sight, no, I can’t do it.

If I was dead, I wouldn’t know I was dead. That’s the only thing I have against death. I want to enjoy my death.

They never lynch children, babies, no matter what they do they are whitewashed in advance. I personally would lynch them with the utmost pleasure, I don’t say I’d lend a hand, no, I am not a violent man, but I’d encourage the others and stand them drinks when it was done.

It is by the nadir that we come, said Watt, and it is by the nadir that we go, whatever that means. And the artist must have felt something of this kind too, for the circle did not turn, as circles will, but sailed steadfast in its white skies, with its patient breach for ever below.

But now he knows these hills, that is to say he knows them better, and if ever again he sees them from afar it will be I think with other eyes, and not only that but the within, all that inner space one never sees, the brain and heart and other caverns where thought and feeling dance their sabbath, all that too quite differently disposed.

Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. Yes, yes, it’s the most comical thing in the world.

That is what I find so wonderful, that not a day goes by... hardly a day, without some addition to one’s knowledge however trifling, the addition I mean, provided one takes the pains.

I knew it would soon be the end, so I played the part, you know, the part of – how shall I say, I don’t know.