“We are all born mad. Some remain so.”
― Samuel Beckett
“Dance first. Think later. It’s the natural order.”
― Samuel Beckett
“All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
― Samuel Beckett
“You’re on Earth. There’s no cure for that.”
― Samuel Beckett
“The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh.”
― Samuel Beckett
“Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
― Samuel Beckett
“I can’t go on, I’ll go on.”
― Samuel Beckett
“Estragon: We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist?
Vladimir: Yes, yes, we’re magicians.”
― Samuel Beckett
“Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.”
― Samuel Beckett
“The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.”
― Samuel Beckett
“My mistakes are my life.”
― Samuel Beckett
“Je suis comme ça. Ou j’oublie tout de suite ou je n’oublie jamais.”
-Samuel BECKETT
I’m like that. Either I forget right away or I never forget. ”
― Samuel Beckett
“The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.”
― Samuel Beckett
“Don’t touch me! Don’t question me! Don’t speak to me! Stay with me!”
― Samuel Beckett
“Vladimir: Did I ever leave you?
Estragon: You let me go.”
― Samuel Beckett
“Nothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes. It’s awful.”
― Samuel Beckett
“Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.”
― Samuel Beckett
“I use the words you taught me. If they don’t mean anything any more, teach me others. Or let me be silent.”
― Samuel Beckett
“You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”
― Samuel Beckett
“The earth makes a sound as of sighs and the last drops fall from the emptied cloudless sky. A small boy, stretching out his hands and looking up at the blue sky, asked his mother how such a thing was possible. Fuck off, she said.”
― Samuel Beckett
“Let’s go.” “We can’t.” “Why not?” “We’re waiting for Godot.”
― Samuel Beckett
“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.”
― Samuel Beckett
“There’s man all over for you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet.”
― Samuel Beckett
“Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for one the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say? It is true that when with folded arms we weigh the pros and cons we are no less a credit to our species. The tiger bounds to the help of his congeners without the least reflexion, or else he slinks away into the depths of the thickets. But that is not the question. What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in the immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come — ”
― Samuel Beckett
“Memories are killing. So you must not think of certain things, of those that are dear to you, or rather you must think of them, for if you don’t there is the danger of finding them, in your mind, little by little.”
― Samuel Beckett
“ESTRAGON: I can’t go on like this.
VLADIMIR: That’s what you think.”
― Samuel Beckett
“Nothing is more real than nothing.”
― Samuel Beckett
“Words are all we have.”
― Samuel Beckett
“That’s how it is on this bitch of an earth.”
― Samuel Beckett
“VLADIMIR: What do they say?
ESTRAGON: They talk about their lives.
VLADIMIR: To have lived is not enough for them.
ESTRAGON: They have to talk about it.”
― Samuel Beckett
“The only sin is the sin of being born”
― Samuel Beckett
“Estragon: I’m like that. Either I forget right away or I never forget.”
― Samuel Beckett
“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.”
― Samuel Beckett
“No, I regret nothing, all I regret is having been born, dying is such a long tiresome business I always found.”
― Samuel Beckett
“They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.”
― Samuel Beckett
“What is that unforgettable line?”
― Samuel Beckett
“Don’t wait to be hunted to hide, that was always my motto.”
― Samuel Beckett
“Ever Tried. Ever Failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
― Samuel Beckett
“Estragon: People are bloody ignorant apes.”
― Samuel Beckett
“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.”
― Samuel Beckett
“It was long since I had longed for anything and the effect on me was horrible.”
― Samuel Beckett
“Unfortunately I am afraid, as always, of going on. For to go on means going from here, means finding me, losing me, vanishing and beginning again, a stranger first, then little by little the same as always, in another place, where I shall say I have always been, of which I shall know nothing, being incapable of seeing, moving, thinking, speaking, but of which little by little, in spite of these handicaps, I shall begin to know something, just enough for it to turn out to be the same place as always, the same which seems made for me and does not want me, which I seem to want and do not want, take your choice, which spews me out or swallows me up, I’ll never know, which is perhaps merely the inside of my distant skull where once I wandered, now am fixed, lost for tininess, or straining against the walls, with my head, my hands, my feet, my back, and ever murmuring my old stories, my old story, as if it were the first time.”
― Samuel Beckett
“Normally I didn’t see a great deal. I didn’t hear a great deal either. I didn’t pay attention. Strictly speaking I wasn’t there. Strictly speaking I believe I’ve never been anywhere.”
― Samuel Beckett
“Vladimir: I don’t understand.
Estragon: Use your intelligence, can’t you?
Vladimir uses his intelligence.
Vladimir: (finally) I remain in the dark.”
― Samuel Beckett
“ESTRAGON: Don’t touch me! Don’t question me! Don’t speak to me! Stay with me!
VLADIMIR: Did I ever leave you?
ESTRAGON: You let me go.”
― Samuel Beckett
“ Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now? Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today? That with Estragon my friend, at this place, until the fall of night, I waited for Godot? That Pozzo passed, with his carrier, and that he spoke to us? Probably. But in all that what truth will there be? He’ll know nothing. He’ll tell me about the blows he received and I’ll give him a carrot. (pause) Astride of a grave and a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave digger puts on the forceps. We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. But habit is a great deadener. At me too someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, He is sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep on. (Pause.) I can’t go on! (Pause.) What have I said? ”
― Samuel Beckett
“Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that… Yes, yes, it’s the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it’s always the same thing. Yes, it’s like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don’t laugh any more.”
― Samuel Beckett
“To every man his little cross. Till he dies. And is forgotten.”
― Samuel Beckett