746 Quotes by Samuel Beckett

Delicious instants, before one’s eyes get used to the dark.

You can’t have everything, I’ve often noticed it.

But all is forgotten and I have done nothing, unless what I am doing now is something, and nothing could give me greater satisfaction.

Yes, there is no good pretending, it is hard to leave everything. The horror-worn eyes linger abject on all they have beseeched so long, in a last prayer, the true prayer at last, the one that asks for nothing. And it is then a little breath of fulfilment revives the dead longings and a murmur is born in the silent world, reproaching you affectionately with having despaired too late. The last word in the way of a viaticum.

Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It’s abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we’ll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.

Perhaps I shall be obliged, in order not to peter out, to invent another fairy-tale, yet another, with heads, trunks, arms, legs and all that follows, let loose in the changeless round of imperfect shadow and dubious light.

Oh not that I was ever even incompletely deaf.

I thought much about myself. That is to say I often took a quick look at myself, closed my eyes, forgot, began again.

As for my needs, they had dwindled as it were to my dimensions and become, if I may say so, of so exquisite a quality as to exclude all thought of succour.