As quoted in "Samuel Beckett Talks About Beckett" by John Gruen, inVogue, (December 1969), p. 210
Comparable to "The tragic figure represents the expiation of original sin, of the original and eternal sin of him and all his 'soci malorum,' the sin of having been born. 'Pues el delito mayor / Del hombre es haber nacido.'" from his essayProust, quotingPedro Calderón de la Barca'sLa vida es sueño (Life is a Dream).
If by Godot I had meantGod I would have said God, and not Godot.
As quoted inThe Essential Samuel Beckett: An Illustrated Biography, by Enoch Brater (revised edition, 2003)ISBN 0-500-28411-3, p. 75
Said aboutWaiting for Godot, from Jonathan Croall,The Coming of Godot (2005)ISBN 1-840-02595-6, p. 91
I grow gnomic. It is the last phase.
The Letters of Samuel Becket 1929–1940 (2009), p. 209
I think the next little bit of excitement is flying. Ihope I am not too old to take it up seriously, nor too stupid about machines to qualify as a commercial pilot.I do not feel like spending the rest of my life writingbooks that no one willread. It is not as though I wanted to write them.
The Letters of Samuel Beckett 1929–1940 (2009), p. 362
The time-state of attainment eliminates so accurately the time-state of aspiration, that the actual seems the inevitable, and, all consciousintellectual effort to reconstitute the invisible and unthinkable as areality being fruitless, we are incapable of appreciating ourjoy by comparing it with oursorrow.
The confusion is not my invention. We cannot listen to a conversation for five minutes without being acutely aware of the confusion. It is all around us and our only chance now is to let it in.
Tom F. Driver, "Beckett by the Madeleine" (1961), Columbia University Forum 4 (Summer 1961): 21-25; it later appeared in Stanley A. Clayes, ed.,Drama and Discussion (1967), pp. 604-7, as quoted in"Rick On Theater" 25 January 2018.
My mother was deeply religious. So was my brother. ... The family was Protestant, but for me it was only irksome and I let it go. My brother and mother got no value from their religion when they died. At the moment of crisis it had no more depth than an old-school tie. Irish Catholicism is not attractive, but it is deeper. When you pass a church on an Irish bus, all the hands flurry in the sign of the cross. One day the dogs of Ireland will do that too and perhaps also the pigs.”
Tom F. Driver, Op. cit.
Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.
It is rare that the feeling ofabsurdity is not followed by the feeling ofnecessity … it is rare that the feeling of necessity is not followed by the feeling of absurdity.
Personally of course I regret everything. Not a word, not a deed, not a thought, not a need, not a grief, not a joy, not a girl, not a boy, not a doubt, not a trust, not a scorn, not a lust, not a hope, not a fear, not a smile, not a tear, not a name, not a face, no time, no place, that I do not regret, exceedingly. An ordure, from beginning to end.
Part I, p. 37
The long blue days, for his head, for his side, and the little paths for his feet, and all the brightness to touch and gather. Through the grass the little mosspaths, bony with old roots, and the trees sticking up, and the flowers sticking up, and the fruit hanging down, and the white exhausted butterflies, and the birds never the same darting all day long into hiding. And all the sounds, meaning nothing. Then at night rest in the quiet house, there are no roads, no streets any more, you lie down by a window opening on refuge, the little sounds come that demand nothing, ordain nothing, explain nothing, propound nothing, and the short necessary night is soon ended, and the sky blue again all over the secret places where nobody ever comes, the secret places never the same, but always simple and indifferent, always mere places, sites of a stirring beyond coming and going, of a being so light and free that it is as the being of nothing.
Part I, p. 39
We are no longer the same, youwiser but not sadder, and I sadder but not wiser, for wiser I could hardly become without grave personal inconvenience, whereassorrow is a thing you can keep adding to all your life long, is it not, like a stamp or an egg collection, without feeling very much the worse for it, is it not.
Part I, p. 50
To whom, Watt wondered, was this arrangement due? To Mr. Knott himself? Or to some other person, to a past domestic perhaps of genius for example, or a professional dietician? And if not to Mr. Knott himself but to some other person, (or of course persons), did Mr. Knott know that such an arrangement existed, or did he not? [...] Twelve possibilities occurred to Watt, in this connexion:
1. Mr. Knott was responsible for the arrangement, and knew that he was responsible for the arrangement, and knew that such an arrangement existed, and was content. 2. Mr. Knott was not responsible for the arrangement, but knew who was responsible for the arrangement, and knew that such an arrangement existed, and was content. 3. Mr. Knott was responsible for the arrangement, and knew that he was responsible for the arrangement, but did not know that any such arrangement existed, and was content. 4. Mr. Knott was not responsible for the arrangement, but knew who was responsible for the arrangement, but did not know that such an arrangement existed, and was content. 5. Mr. Knott was responsible for the arrangement, but did not know who was responsible for the arrangement, nor that any such arrangement existed, and was content. 6. Mr. Knott was not responsible for the arrangement, nor knew who was responsible for the arrangement, nor knew that any such arrangement existed, and was content. 7. Mr. Knott was responsible for the arrangement, but did not know who was responsible for the arrangement, and knew that such an arrangement existed, and was content. 8. Mr. Knott was not responsible for the arrangement, nor knew who was responsible for the arrangement, and knew that such an arrangement existed, and was content. 9. Mr. Knott was responsible for the arrangement, but knew who was responsible for the arrangement, and knew that such an arrangement existed, and was content. 10. Mr. Knott was not responsible for the arrangement, but knew that he was responsible for the arrangement, and knew that such an arrangement existed, and was content. 11. Mr. Knott was responsible for the arrangement, but knew who was responsible for the arrangement, but did not know that any such arrangement existed, and was content. 12. Mr. Knott was not responsible for the arrangement, but knew that he was responsible for the arrangement, but did not know that such an arrangement existed, and was content.
Other possibilities occurred to Watt, in this connexion, but he put them aside, and quite out of his mind, as unworthy of serious consideration, for the time being.
pp. 71-2
For the only way one can speak ofnothing is to speak of it as though it were something, just as the only way one can speak ofGod is to speak of him as though he were a man, which to be sure he was, in a sense, for atime, and as the only way one can speak of man, even our anthropologists have realized that, is to speak of him as though he were a termite.
Part II, p. 77
But he had turned, little by little, a disturbance into words, he had made a pillow of old words, for his head.
Part II, p. 117
But he had hardly felt theabsurdity of those things, on the one hand, and thenecessity of those others, on the other (for it is rare that the feeling of absurdity is not followed by the feeling of necessity), when he felt the absurdity of those things of which he had just felt the necessity (for it is rare that the feeling of necessity is not followed by the feeling of absurdity).
Part II, p. 133
Consider: the darkening ease, the brighteningtrouble; thepleasure pleasure because it was, thepain pain because it shall be; theglad acts grownproud, the proud acts growing stubborn; the panting and trembling towards a being gone, a being to come; and the true true no longer, and the false true not yet. And to decide not to smile after all, sitting in the shade, hearing the cicadas, wishing it were night, wishing it were morning, saying, No, it is not theheart, no, it is not the liver, no, it is not the prostate, no, it is not the ovaries, no, it is muscular, it is nervous.
Part III, p. 201
Bid us sigh on from day to day, And wish and wish thesoul away, Till youth and genial years are flown, Andall thelife of life is gone.
They were most correct, according to theirgod.They never lynchchildren, babies, no matter what they do they are whitewashed in advance.
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 thedanger of finding them, in yourmind, little by little.
I have always been amazed at my contemporaries’ lack of finesse, I whosesoul writhed from morning to night, in the mere quest of itself.
I felt ill at ease with all thisair about me, lost before the confusion of innumerable prospects.
Yes, I don’t know why, butI have never been disappointed, and I often was in the early days, without feeling at the same time, or a moment later, an undeniable relief.
Poor juvenile solutions, explaining nothing. No need then for caution,we mayreason on to ourheart’s content, the fog won’t lift.
The short winter’s day was drawing to a close. It seems to me sometimes that these are the only days I have ever known, and especially that most charming moment of all, just before night wipes them out.
I don’t know why I told thisstory. I could just as well have told another. Perhaps some other time I’ll be able to tell another.Livingsouls, you will see how alike they are.
They never lynchchildren, babies, no matter what they do they are whitewashed in advance.
It’s to me this evening something has to happen, to my body as inmyth and metamorphosis, this old body to which nothing ever happened, or so little, which never met with anything, wished for anything, in its tarnisheduniverse, except for the mirrors to shatter, the plane, the curved, the magnifying, the minifying, and to vanish in the havoc of its images.
I marshalled thewords and opened my mouth, thinking I would hear them. But all I heard was a kind of rattle, unintelligible even to me who knew what was intended.
How tell what remains ? But it’s theend. Or have I been dreaming, am I dreaming? No no, none of that, fordream is nothing, ajoke, andsignificant what is worse.
To think that in a momentall will be said, all to do again.
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.
I didn’t feel well, but they told me I was well enough.They didn’t say in so manywords that I was as well as I would ever be, but that was the implication.
Theearth makes a sound as of sighs and the last drops fall from the emptied cloudlesssky. 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.
Myappearance still made peoplelaugh, with that hearty jovial laugh so good for thehealth.
It was long since I had longed for anything and the effect on me was horrible.
I felt weak, perhaps I was.
Amask of dirty old hairy leather, with two holes and a slit, it was too far gone for the old trick of please your honour andGod reward you and pity upon me. It was disastrous.
I tried to groan, Help! Help! But the tone that came out was that of polite conversation.
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.
I knew it would soon be the end, soI played the part, you know, the part of — how shall I say, I don’t know.
To contrive a little kingdom, in the midst of the universal muck, then shit on it, ah that was me all over.
Thememory came faint and cold of the story I might have told, a story in the likeness of mylife, I mean without thecourage toend or thestrength to go on.
"Three Dialogues" by Samuel Beckett and Georges Duthuit, intransition 49 (1949)
Bynature I mean here, like the naïvest realist, a composite of perceiver and perceived, not a datum, anexperience. All I wish to suggest is that the tendency and accomplishment of this painting are fundamentally those of previous painting, straining to enlarge the statement of a compromise.
Theexpression that there is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, no desire to express, together with the obligation to express.
To restoresilence is the role of objects.To him who hasnothing it is forbidden not to relish filth.Can it be we are notfree? It might be worth looking into.There is a little of everything, apparently, innature, and freaks are common.
Don't wait to be hunted to hide, that's always been my motto.
But is it truelove, in the rectum? That’s what bothers me sometimes.
And once again I am I will not say alone, no, that's not like me, but, how shall I say, I don't know, restored to myself, no, I never left myself, free, yes, I don't know what that means but it's the word I mean to use, free to do what, to do nothing, to know, but what, the laws of the mind perhaps, of my mind, that for example water rises in proportion as it drowns you and that you would do better, at least no worse, to obliterate texts than to blacken margins, to fill in the holes of words till all is blank and flat and the whole ghastly business looks like what is, senseless, speechless, issueless misery.
There is something … more important inlife than punctuality, and that is decorum.
To him who hasnothing it is forbidden not to relish filth.
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 byheart and long forgotten, life without tears, as it is wept.
Thefact is, it seems, that the most you canhope is to be a little less, in theend, the creature you were in the beginning, and the middle.
My life, my life, now I speak of it as of something over, now as of ajoke which still goes on, and it is neither, for at the sametime it is over and it goes on, and is there any tense for that?Watch wound and buried by the watchmaker, before he died, whose ruined works will one day speak ofGod, to the worms.
All the things you would do gladly, oh withoutenthusiasm, but gladly, all the things there seems noreason for your not doing, and that you do not do!Can it be we are notfree? It might be worth looking into.
It sometimes happens and will sometimes happen again that I forget who I am and strut before myeyes, like astranger.
Anything worse than what I do, without knowing what, or why, I have never been able to conceive, and that doesn’t surprise me, for I never tried.For had I been able to conceive something worse than what I had I would have known nopeace until I got it, if I know anything about myself.
In me there have always been twofools, among others, one asking nothing better than to stay where he is and the other imagining that life might be slightly less horrible a little further on.
Yes, there were times when I forgot not only who I was, but that I was, forgot to be.
What do you expect, one is what one is, partly at least.
To knownothing is nothing, not to want to know anything likewise, but to be beyond knowing anything, to know you are beyond knowing anything, that is whenpeace enters in, to the soul of the incurious seeker.
Having 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 killtime, that when a man in a forest thinks he is going forward in a straight line, in reality he is going in acircle,I did my best to go in a circle, hoping in this way to go in a straight line. For I stopped being half-witted and became sly, whenever I took the trouble … and if I did not go in a rigorously straight line, with my system of going in a circle,at least I did not go in a circle, and that was something.
What I assert, deny, question, in the present, I still can. But mostly I shall use the various tenses of thepast. For mostly I do not know, it is perhaps no longer so, it is too soon to know,I simply do not know, perhaps shall never know.
I don’t like animals. It’s astrange thing, I don’t likemen and I don’t likeanimals. As forGod, he is beginning to disgust me.
I was not made for thegreatlight that devours, a dim lamp was all I had been given, andpatience withoutend, to shine it on the emptyshadows. I was a solid in the midst of other solids.
I get up, go out, and everything is changed. The blood drains from my head, the noise of things bursting, merging, avoiding one another, assails me on all sides, my eyes search in vain for two things alike, each pinpoint of skin screams a different message, I drown in the spray of phenomena.
To decompose is to live too, I know, I know, don't torment me, but one sometimes forgets. And of that life too I shall tell you perhaps one day, the day I know that when I thought I knew I was merely existing and that passion without form or stations will have devoured me down to the rotting flesh itself and that when I know that I know nothing, am only crying out as I have always cried out, more or less piercingly, more or less openly.Let me cry out then, it's said to be good for you. Yes let me cry out, this time, then another time perhaps, then perhaps a last time.
There is a little ofeverything, apparently, innature, and freaks are common.
Not to want to say, not to know what you want to say, not to be able to say what you think you want to say, and never to stop saying, or hardly ever, that is the thing to keep inmind, even in the heat of composition.
Let me say before I go any further that Iforgive nobody.I wish them all an atrocious life and then thefires and ice ofhell and in the execrable generations to come an honoured name.
The loss ofconsciousness for me was never any great loss.
Or I might be able to catch one, a little girl for example, and half strangle her, three quarters, until she promises to give me my stick, give me soup, empty my pots, kiss me, fondle me, smile to me, give me my hat, stay with me, follow the hearse weeping into her handkerchief, that would be nice.I am such agood man, at bottom, such a good man, how is it that nobody ever noticed it?
He who has waited long enough, will wait forever. And there comes the hour when nothing more can happen and nobody more can come and all isended but the waiting that knows itself invain.
Vladimir: You should have been apoet. Estragon: I was (Gesture towards his rags.)Isn't that obvious?
Vladimir: Come on, Gogo, return the ball, can't you, once in a way? Estragon: (with exaggerated enthusiasm).I find this really most extraordinarily interesting.
Estragon: Let's go. Vladimir: We can't. Estragon: Why not? Vladimir: We're waiting for Godot. Estragon: (despairingly). Ah!
Estragon: What about hanging ourselves? Vladimir: Hmm. It'd give us an erection. Estragon: (highly excited). An erection! Vladimir: With all that follows. Where it falls mandrakes grow. That's why they shriek when you pull them up. Did you not know that? Estragon: Let's hang ourselves immediately!
Pozzo: Thetears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops. The same is true of thelaugh. (He laughs.)Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors. (Pause.) Let us not speak well of it either. (Pause.) Let us not speak of it at all. (Pause. Judiciously.) It is true the population has increased.
Vladimir: That passed thetime. Estragon: It would have passed in any case. Vladimir: Yes, but not so rapidly.
Boy: (in a rush).Mr. Godot told me to tell you he won't come this evening but surely tomorrow.
Vladimir: We've nothing more to do here. Estragon: Nor anywhere else.
Estragon: Well, shall we go? Vladimir: Yes, let's go.(They do not move.)
We areallbornmad. Some remain so.Was Isleeping, while the otherssuffered? Am I sleeping now? Tomorrow, when Iwake, or think I do, what shall I say of today? That with Estragon myfriend, at this place, until the fall ofnight, I waited for Godot?
Vladimir: (sententious.) To every man his little cross. (He sighs.) Till he dies. (Afterthought.) And is forgotten.
Vladimir: Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! (Pause. Vehemently.)Let us do something while we have thechance! It is not everyday that we areneeded. Not indeed that wepersonally are needed. Others would meet the caseequally well, if not better. Toallmankind they were addressed, those cries forhelp still ringing in our ears!But at this place, at this moment oftime,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 once the foul brood to which a cruelfate consigned us!
Estragon:(aphoristic for once).We are all born mad. Some remain so.
Pozzo: I woke up one fine day as blind asFortune. (Pause.) Sometimes Iwonder if I'm not still asleep.
Pozzo: Theblind have no notion oftime. The things of time are hidden from them too.
Pozzo: (suddenly furious). 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? (Calmer.)They givebirth astride of a grave, thelight gleams an instant, then it'snight once more.
Vladimir: 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? (Estragon, having struggled with his boots in vain, is dozing off again. Vladimir looks at him.) 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. (He listens.) But habit is a great deadener. (He looks again at Estragon.) 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?
Estragon: I can't go on like this. Vladimir: That's what youthink.
Vladimir: We are notsaints, but we have kept our appointment. How many people can boast as much?
What makes me weep so? Fromtime to time. There isnothing saddening here.I, of whom I knownothing, I know myeyes are open, because of thetears that pour from them unceasingly.Dear incomprehension, it’s thanks to you I’ll be myself, in theend.It will be I, it will be thesilence, where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.
Where now? Who now? When now? Unquestioning. I, say I. Unbelieving. Questions, hypotheses, call them that. Keep going, going on, call that going, call that on.
Thetears stream down my cheeks from my unblinkingeyes.What makes me weep so? Fromtime to time. There isnothing saddening here. Perhaps it is liquefiedbrain.
Deplorable mania, when something happens, to inquire what.
In order to obtain the optimum view of what takes place in front of me, I should have to lower my eyes a little. But I lower my eyes no more. In a word,I only see what appears close beside me, what I best see I see ill.
What they were most determined for me to swallow was my fellow creatures. In this they were withoutmercy. I remember little ornothing of these lectures. I cannot have understood a great deal. But I seem to have retained certain descriptions, in spite of myself. They gave me courses onlove, onintelligence, most precious, most precious. They also taught me to count, and even toreason.Some of this rubbish has come in handy on occasions, I don’t deny it, on occasions which would never have arisen if they had left me inpeace. I use it still, to scratch my arse with.
These things I say, and shall say, if I can, are no longer, or are not yet, or never were, or never will be, or if they were, if they are, if they will be, were not here, are not here, will not be here, but elsewhere.
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.
I, of whom Iknownothing, I know myeyes are open, because of thetears that pour from them unceasingly.
All thisbusiness of a labour to accomplish, before I canend, ofwords to say, atruth to recover, in order to say it, before I can end, of an imposed task, once known, long neglected, finally forgotten, to perform, before I can be done with speaking, done with listening, I invented it all, in thehope it would console me, help me to go on, allow me to think of myself as somewhere on a road, moving, between a beginning and an end, gaining ground, losing ground, getting lost, but somehow in the long run making headway.
Dear incomprehension, it’s thanks to you I’ll bemyself, in theend.
At no moment do Iknow what I’m talking about, nor of whom, nor of where, nor how, nor why, but I could employ fifty wretches for this sinister operation and still be short of the fifty-first, to close the circuit, that I know, without knowing what itmeans.
The essential is to go on squirming forever at the end of the line, as long as there are waters and banks and ravening inheaven a sportinggod to plague his creatures, per pro his chosen shits.
What ajoy to know where one is, and where one will stay, without being there. Nothing to do but stretch out comfortably on the rack, in the blissfulknowledge you are nobody for alleternity. A pity I should have to give tongue at the same time, it prevents it from bleeding in peace, licking the lips.
How all becomes clear and simple when one opens an eye on the within, having of course previously exposed it to the without, in order to benefit by the contrast.
What can it matter to me, that I succeed or fail? The undertaking is none of mine, if they want me to succeed I’ll fail, and vice versa, so as not to be rid of my tormentors.
Bah, the latest news, the latest news is not the last.
Ah if only thisvoice could stop, this meaningless voice which prevents you from beingnothing, just barely prevents you from being nothing and nowhere, just enough to keep alight this little yellow flame feebly darting from side to side, panting, as if straining to tear itself from its wick, it should never have been lit, or it should never have been fed, or it should have been put out, put out, it should have been let go out.
Yes, in mylife, since we must call it so, there were three things, the inability tospeak, the inability to besilent, andsolitude, that’s what I’ve had to make the best of.
This place, if I could describe this place, no place around me, there’s noend to me, I don’t know what it is, it isn’t flesh, it doesn’t end, it’s like air…
Perhaps it's done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of mystory, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens,it will be I, it will be thesilence, where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.
Astory is not compulsory, just alife, that's themistake I made, one of the mistakes, to have wanted a story for myself, whereas life alone is enough.
Tears, that could be the tone, if they weren't so easy, the true tone and tenor at last.
My keepers, why keepers, I'm in nodanger of stirring an inch, ah I see, it's to make me think I'm a prisoner, frantic with corporeality, rearing to get out and away.
Here's mylife, why not, it is one, if you like, if you must, I don't say no, this evening. There has to be one, it seems, once there is speech,no need of astory, a story is not compulsory, just a life, that's the mistake I made, one of the mistakes, to have wanted a story for myself, whereas life alone is enough.
Nothing isfunnier thanunhappiness.We still find itfunny, but we don'tlaugh any more.What inGod's name could there be on the horizon?Mean something? You and Imean something?
Hamm: Can there bemisery (he yawns) loftier than mine?
Hamm: Ah, the old questions, the old answers, there's nothing like them!
Hamm: If I could sleep I might make love. I'd go into the woods. My eyes would see … the sky, the earth. I'd run, run, they wouldn't catch me.
Hamm: There's something dripping in my head. Aheart, a heart in my head.
Nell:Nothing is funnier than unhappiness. Nagg: Oh? Nell: Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in theworld. And welaugh, we laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing. Yes, it's like thefunny story we have heard too often,we still find it funny, but we don't laugh any more.
Hamm: Look at the ocean! (Clov gets down, takes a few steps towards window left, goes back for ladder, carries it over and sets it down under window left, gets up on it, turns the telescope on the without, looks at length. He starts, lowers the telescope, examines it, turns it again on the without.) Clov: Never seen anything like that! Hamm (anxious): What? A sail? A fin? Smoke? Clov(looking): The light is sunk. Hamm (relieved): Pah! We all knew that. Clov (looking): There was a bit left. Hamm: The base. Clov (looking): Yes. Hamm: And now? Clov (looking): All gone. Hamm: No gulls? Clov (looking): Gulls! Hamm: And the horizon? Nothing on the horizon? Clov (lowering the telescope, turning towards Hamm, exasperated): What in God's name could there be on the horizon? (Pause.) Hamm: The waves, how are the waves? Clov: The waves? (He turns the telescope on the waves.) Lead. Hamm: And the sun? Clov(looking): Zero. Hamm: But it should be sinking. Look again. Clov (looking): Damn the sun. Hamm: Is it night already then? Clov (looking): No. Hamm: Then what is it? Clov (looking): Gray. (Lowering the telescope, turning towards Hamm, louder.) Gray! (Pause. Still louder.) GRRAY! (Pause. He gets down, approaches Hamm from behind, whispers in his ear.) Hamm (starting): Gray! Did I hear you say gray? Clov: Light black. From pole to pole.
An explanation of the universe outside the room ofEndgame
Hamm: What's he doing? (CLOV raises lid of NAGG's bin, stoops, looks into it. Pause.) Clov: He's crying. (He closes lid, straightens up) Hamm: Then he's living.
Hamm: We're not beginning … to … to …mean something? Clov: Mean something? You and Imean something?
No,life ends and no, there isnothing elsewhere, and no question now of ever finding again that white speck lost in whiteness, to see if they still lie still in the stress of thatstorm, or of a worse storm, or in the black dark for good, or the great whiteness unchanging, and if not what they are doing.
All of old.Nothing else ever.Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again.Fail again. Fail better.
Enough. Sudden enough. Sudden all far. No move and sudden all far. All least. Three pins. One pinhole. In dimmost dim. Vasts apart. At bounds of boundless void. Whence no farther. Best worse no farther.Nohow less. Nohow worse. Nohow naught. Nohow on.
Why can't youwrite the way people want? ~ Frank BeckettHe is the aestheticreductio ad absurdum ofabsurdism: no longer whistling in thedark, after waiting for Godot, he is trying to be radicallysilent, wordless in the dark. ~William DesmondThis first play shows consummate stagecraft. Its author has achieved a theoretical impossibility — a play in whichnothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats. What’s more, since the second act is a subtly differentreprise of the first, he has written a play in which nothing happens,twice. ~Vivian MercierHe was a taciturn man. Sometimes aword escaped from his mouth. Sure, a word you would never forget. It would stick in your head … ~Bram van Velde
Alphabetized by author
Why can't you write the way people want?
Frank Beckett, in a letter to his brother Samuel, inThe Letters of Samuel Beckett 1929–1940 (2009)
Beckett does notbelieve inGod, though he seems to imply that God has committed an unforgivable sin by not existing.
Anthony Burgess,The Novel Now: A Guide to Contemporary Fiction (1956)
I saw three short Beckett plays when I was sixteen, and I didn't know what it was but It hit me like a train. It was intense enough for me to never forget it. My road to Damascus.
Paul ChanArt Is the Highest Form of Hope & Other Quotes by Artists by Phaidon (2016)
I remember two playwrights who affected me deeply, for their wit especially:Edward Albee andSamuel Beckett. I found their sense of absurdity comforting.
In regard toabsurdism, Samuel Beckett is sometimes considered to be the epitome of the postmodernartist … In fact, he is the aestheticreductio ad absurdum of absurdism: no longer whistling in thedark, after waiting for Godot, he is trying to be radicallysilent, wordless in the dark. Beckett tries to bespeak a failure of thelogos that never quite succeeds in being a failure, for to speak the failure would be a kind of success.Hence the essentiallycomic (hence unavoidably and ultimatelyaffirmative)nature of hiswork.
William Desmond,Philosophy and Its Others : Ways of Being and Mind (1990)
[F]or Beckett, immobility,death, theloss of personalmovement and of vertical stature...are only a subjectivefinality...only a means in relation to more profoundend. It is a question of attaining once more theworld beforeman...the position where movement was...under the regime ofuniversal variation, and wherelight, always propagating itself, had no need to be revealed...
ThoughGodot contains all the wit and whimsicality ofMurphy (minus a great deal of the old pedantry), it has one new ingredient —humanity. The novel and the play both tell us that human suffering is comic and irrational (" absurd" in the fashionable jargon), but onlyGodot reads like the work of a man who has actually suffered. …Even if it added nothing toMurphy,Godot would still be remarkable by the mere fact of being a popular play on an unpopular theme. It popularity is a smack in the face for all those who say that to be a skillful playwright one must first be a "man of the theatre." As far as I know, Mr Beckett may never have been backstage in his life untilGodot was first performed. Yet, this first play shows consummate stagecraft.Its author has achieved a theoretical impossibility — a play in whichnothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats. What’s more, since the second act is a subtly differentreprise of the first,he has written a play in which nothing happens,twice. . . .Godot makes fun even of despair. No further proof of Mr Beckett’s essential Irishness is needed.He outdoes MMSartre andCamus in skepticism, just asSwift beatVoltaire at his own game. . . . About the only thingGodot shows consistent respect for is the music-hall low-comedy tradition.
Vivian Mercier, onWaiting for Godot, in "The Uneventful Event" inThe Irish Times (18 February 1956), p. 6; also published inThe Critical Response to Samuel Beckett (1998) by Cathleen Culotta Andonian. The phrase "Nothing happens,twice" is often quoted in reference to the play, sometimes as if it were a condemnation of it, when in truth Mercier was plainly impressed by the work.
The prospect of reading Beckett's letters quickens theblood like no other's, and one musthope to stay alive until the fourth volume is safely delivered.
Tom Stoppard, blurb on dust jacket ofThe Letters of Samuel Beckett 1929–1940 (2009)
If I hadn’t had Beckett in 1940 [in Paris, when Van Velde was strongly demoralized by the death of his wife], I’m not sure I could have stood it. I am really not sure …At that time he [Beckett] he was driven by an extremely aggressive and fiery Irish spirit. That has lessened as time has gone on … I don’t know anywhere in modern art any more faithful or more impressive picture of contemporary humanity than the one he offers us inThe Unamable.
Bram van Velde, inConversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde (1970), edited by Charles Juliet, p. 79
I met Beckett atmy brother’s place. That was a Big meeting [circa 1938, in Paris], in capital letters. It was before war started, life was still normal. That time I was very lonely. We saw each other often. Before the war he had published already something, but his fame came in 1953. We never spoke about his work.He was a taciturn man. Sometimes a word escaped from his mouth. Sure, a word you would never forget. It would stick in your head … This friendship with Beckett is the most important experience in my life. He was fully alive for my way of working. What he could express in words, I did with my paintings.
Bram van Velde, as quoted in "Schilder Bram van Velde in Dordrecht," inNRC Handelsblad (1979) by Paul Groot, as translated by Charlotte Burgmans
In fact, the real problem with the thesis ofA Genealogy of Morals is that the noble and the aristocrat are just as likely to be stupid as the plebeian. I had noted in my teens that major writers are usually those who have had to struggle against the odds — to "pull their cart out of the mud," as I put it — while writers who have had an easy start in life are usually second rate — or at least, not quite first-rate.Dickens,Balzac,Dostoevsky,Shaw,H. G. Wells, are examples of the first kind; in the twentieth century,John Galsworthy,Graham Greene,Evelyn Waugh, and Samuel Beckett are examples of the second kind. They are far from being mediocre writers; yet they tend to be tinged with a certain pessimism that arises from never having achieved a certain resistance against problems.
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