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Samuel Beckett Quotes

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Famous Samuel Beckett Quotes

“There he is then, the unfortunate brute, quite miserable because of me, for whom there is nothing to be done, and he so anxious to help, so used to giving orders and to being obeyed. There he is, ever since I came into the world, possibly at his instigation, I wouldn't put it past him, commanding me to be well, you know, in every way, no complaints at all, with as much success as if he were shouting at a lump of inanimate matter.”

GodMankindCreatorManFathersMaster
Book:The Unnamable
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“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 --”

ActionIdentity
Book:Waiting for Godot
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“POZZO: 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 give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more. ( He jerks the rope. ) On!”

Humour
Book:Waiting for Godot
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“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?”

Humour
Book:Waiting for Godot
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“Bloom of adulthood. Try a whiff of that. On your back in the dark you remember. Ah you remember. Cloudless May day. She joins you in the little summerhouse. Entirely of logs. Both larch and fir. Six feet across. Eight from floor to vertex. Area twenty-four square feet to the furthest decimal. Two small multicoloured lights vis-a-vis. Small stained diamond panes. Under each a ledge. There on summer Sundays after his midday meal your father loved to retreat with Punch and a cushion. The waist of his trousers unbuttoned he sat on the one ledge and turned the pages. You on the other your feet dangling. When he chuckled you tried to chuckle too. When his chuckle died yours too. That you should try to imitate his chuckle pleased and amused him greatly and sometimes he would chuckle for no other reason than to hear you try to chuckle too. Sometimes you turn your head and look out through a rose-red pane. You press your little nose against the pane and all without is rosy. The years have flown and there at the same place as then you sit in the bloom of adulthood bathed in rainbow light gazing before you. She is late.”

ChildhoodAdulthoodRelentlessness
Book:As the Story Was Told
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“HAMM: In my house. (pause.) One day you’ll be blind, like me. You’ll be sitting there, a speck in the void, in the dark, for ever, like me. (pause.) One day you’ll say to yourself, I’m tired, I’ll sit down, and you’ll go and sit down. Then you’ll say, I’m hungry, I’ll get up and get something to eat. But you won’t get up. You’ll say, I shouldn’t have sat down, but since I have I’ll sit on a little longer, then I’ll get up and get something to eat. But you won’t get up and you won’t get anything to eat. (pause.) You’ll look at the wall a while, then you’ll say, I’ll close my eyes, perhaps have a little sleep, after that I’ll feel better, and you’ll close them. And when you open them again there’ll be no wall any more. (pause.) Infinite emptiness will be all around you, all the resurrected dead of all the ages wouldn’t fill it, and there you’ll be like a little bit of grit in the middle of the steppe. (pause.) Yes, one day you’ll know what it is, you’ll be like me, except that you won’t have anyone with you, because you won’t have had pity on anyone and because there won’t be anyone left to have pity on. (pause.)”

EndgameSamuel Beckett
Book:Endgame
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“...this evening it's too late, too late to get things right, I'll go to sleep, so that I may say, hear myself say, a little later, I've slept, he's slept, but he won't have slept, or else he's sleeping now, he'll have done nothing, nothing but go on, doing what, doing what he does, that is to say, I don't know, giving up, that's it, I'll have gone on giving up, having had nothing, not being there.”

Giving UpDoing NothingSleepingTexts For Nothing
Book:Texts for Nothing and Other Shorter Prose 1950-1976
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“You lean back against the door with bowed head making ready to set out. By the time you open your eyes your feet have disappeared and the skirt of your great coat come to rest on the surface of the snow. The dark scene seems lit from below. You see yourself at the last outset leaning against the door with closed eyes waiting for the word from you to go. To be gone.Then the snowlit scene. You lie in the dark with closed eyes and see yourself there as described making ready to strike out and away across the expanse of light. You hear again the click of the door pulled gently to and the silence before the steps can start. Next thing you are on your way across the white pasture afrolic with lambs in spring and strewn with red placantae.”

BeckettSamuel Beckett
Book:Nohow On: Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, Worstward Ho
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“que ferais-je sans ce monde que ferais-je sans ce monde sans visage sans questions où être ne dure qu'un instant où chaque instant verse dans le vide dans l'oubli d'avoir été sans cette onde où à la fin corps et ombre ensemble s'engloutissent que ferais-je sans ce silence gouffre des murmures haletant furieux vers le secours vers l'amour sans ce ciel qui s'élève sur la poussieère de ses lests que ferais-je je ferais comme hier comme aujourd'hui regardant par mon hublot si je ne suis pas seul à errer et à virer loin de toute vie dans un espace pantin sans voix parmi les voix enfermées avec moi Translation... what would I do without this world what would I do without this world faceless incurious where to be lasts but an instant where every instant spills in the void the ignorance of having been without this wave where in the end body and shadow together are engulfed what would I do without this silence where the murmurs die the pantings the frenzies towards succour towards love without this sky that soars above its ballast dust what would I do what I did yesterday and the day before peering out of my deadlight looking for another wandering like me eddying far from all the living in a convulsive space among the voices voiceless that throng my hiddenness”

PoemsFrenchBeckett
Book:Collected Poems in English and French
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“Estragon:-¿Cuál es nuestro papel en este asunto? Vladimir:-¿Nuestro papel? Estragon:-Tómate tiempo. Vladimir:-¿Nuestro papel? El del suplicante. Estragon:-¿Hasta este extremo? Vladimir: ¿El señor tiene exigencias que hacer valer? Estragon:-¿Ya no tenemos derechos? (Risa de Vladimir, quien se reprime como antes. Mismos gestos, salvo la sonrisa) Vladimir:-Me harías reír si me estuviera permitido. Estragon:-¿Los hemos perdido? Vladimir (con claridad):-Los hemos vendido.”

BeckettTeatroDerechosSamuel Beckett
Book:Waiting for Godot
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“Vladimir:-Cuando uno piensa, oye. Estragon:-Cierto. Vladimir:-Y eso impide reflexionar. Estragon:-Claro. Vladimir:-Impide pensar. Estragon:-De todos modos se piensa. Vladimir:-¡Qué va!, resulta imposible. Estragon:-Eso es, contradigámonos. Vladimir: Imposible. Estragon:-¿Tú crees? Vladimir:-Ya no nos arriesgamos a pensar. Estragon:-Entonces, ¿De qué nos lamentamos?”

PensamientosReflexionesBeckettPensar
Book:Waiting for Godot
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“What mattered to me in my dispeopled kingdom, that in regard to which the disposition of my carcass was the merest and most futile of accidents, was supineness in the mind, the dulling of the self and of that residue of execrable frippery known as the non-self and even the world, for short. But man is still today, at the age of twenty-five, at the mercy of an erection, physically too, from time to time, it’s the common lot, even I was not immune, if that may be called an erection. It did not escape her naturally, women smell a [23] rigid phallus ten miles away and won­der, How on earth did he spot me from there? One is no longer oneself, on such occasions, and it is painful to be no longer oneself, even more painful if possible than when one is. For when one is one knows what to do to be less so, whereas when one is not one is any old one irredeemably. What goes by the name of love is banishment, with now and then a postcard from the homeland, such is my considered opinion, this evening.”

ExistentialAlienationFirst Love Last Love
Author:Samuel Beckett
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“What mattered to me in my dispeopled kingdom, that in regard to which the disposition of my carcass was the merest and most futile of accidents, was supineness in the mind, the dulling of the self and of that residue of execrable frippery known as the non-self and even the world, for short. But man is still today, at the age of twenty-five, at the mercy of an erection, physically too, from time to time, it’s the common lot, even I was not immune, if that may be called an erection. It did not escape her naturally, women smell a rigid phallus ten miles away and won­der, How on earth did he spot me from there? One is no longer oneself, on such occasions, and it is painful to be no longer oneself, even more painful if possible than when one is. For when one is one knows what to do to be less so, whereas when one is not one is any old one irredeemably. What goes by the name of love is banishment, with now and then a postcard from the homeland, such is my considered opinion, this evening.”

ExistentialAlienationFirst Love Last Love
Book:First Love and Other Novellas
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“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?”

GraveGodotVladimir
Author:Samuel Beckett
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“Estragon: Acaba beraber olmasaydık ikimiz için de daha hayırlı olmaz mıydı? (sahneyi baştan başa geçer, tümseğe oturur.) Aynı yolun yolcuları değiliz aslında. Vladimir: (kızmadan) Orası belli değil. Estragon: Doğru, hiçbir şey belli değil. (Vladimir sahneyi baştan başa geçer, Estragon'un yanına oturur.) Vladimir: Her zaman ayrılabiliriz; bizim için daha iyi olacağına inanıyorsan. Estragon: Artık değmez. (sessizlik) Vladimir: Doğru, artık değmez. (sessizlik) Estragon: Eee, gidelim mi? Vladimir: Evet, gidelim. (Kımıldamazlar.)”

TheatreDialogueVladimirEstragonTheater Of The Absurd
Book:Waiting for Godot
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“-Haklısın, biz tükenmeyiz. -Düşünmeyelim diye. -Özrümüz var. -İşitmeyelim diye. -Nedenlerimiz var. -Bütün ölü sesleri. -Kanat çırpar gibi bir gürültü çıkarır. -Yapraklar gibi. -Kum gibi. -Yapraklar gibi. -Bir ağızdan konuşur hepsi. -Her biri kendi kendine. -Fısıldarlar daha çok. -Hışırdarlar. -Mırıldanırlar. -Hışırdarlar. -Ne derler? -Hayatlarından bahsederler. -Yaşamış olmak onlara yetmez. -Bir de bahsetmeleri gerekir. -Ölmüş olmak onlara yetmez. -Yeterli gelmez. -Tüy sesi çıkarırlar. -Yapraklar gibi. -Kül gibi. -Yapraklar gibi. -Bir şey söyle! -Arıyorum. -Ne olursa olsun bir şey söyle! -Şimdi n'apıyoruz? -Godot'yu bekliyoruz. -Ha! -Berbat bir şey! -Bir şarkı söyle! -Yo.yo! Belki yeni baştan başlayabiliriz. -Kolay olmalı. -Başlamaktır zor olan. -Her noktadan yola çıkılabilir. -Evet ama karar vermek gerekir. -Doğru. -Yardım et! -Gayret ediyorum. -İnsan ararken bir şeyler işitir. -Doğru. -Bu da bulmayı engeller. -Doğru. -Düşünmeyi engeller. -Yine de düşünür insan”

VladimirEstragon
Author:Samuel Beckett
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“Burada vaktimizi ziyan etmeyelim. Fırsat çıkmışken bir şeyler yapalım! Her gün bize ihtiyaç duyan biri çıkmaz. Yo yo, şahsen bize ihtiyaç duyulduğunu söylüyor değilim. Başkaları belki çok daha fazla yarar işe. Kulaklarımızda hala çınlayan imdat çığlıkları bütün insanlığa dönük! Ama burada, zamanın bu noktasında insanlık biziz. Hoşumuza gitsin gitmesin. Bunun değerini bilelim, çok geç olmadan! Hadi gidip, bir kere olsun acımasız kaderin bize sunduğu bu görevi hakkıyla yerine getirelim. Ne dersin? Kollarımızı kavuşturup durumun eğrisini doğrusunu ölçüp biçerken de, türümüzü onurlandırdığımız doğrudur. Kaplan kaplanın yardımına hiç düşünmeden koşar ya da balta girmemiş ormanların derinliklerinde kaybolur. Ama mesele bu değil. Burada ne yapmaktayız, işte bütün mesele bu. Ne mutlu bize ki, yanıtı biliyoruz. Evet bu muazzam karışıklığın içinde açık seçik olan bir şey var: Godot'yu bekliyoruz-”

Vladimir
Author:Samuel Beckett
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“Bütün bildiğim şu: saatler geçmek bilmez ve bu koşullarda bizi, vakit geçirmek için türlü türlü-nasıl desem- ilk bakışta makul gözüken, ama zamanla monotonluğa dönüşecek oyunlara başvurmaya zorlar. Böylece aklımızı kaybetmekten kurtulduğumuzu söyleyebilirsin. Kuşkusuz doğru. Ama aklımız uzun süredir dipsiz derinliklerin bitimsiz gecelerinde dolanıp durmuyor mu zaten? Bazen bunu soruyorum kendime. Akıl yürütüşümü takip edebiliyor musun?”

Vladimir
Author:Samuel Beckett
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“Uyuyor muydum ben başkaları acı çekerken? Şu anda uyuyor muyum? Yarın uyanınca veya uyandığımı sandığımda, bugün hakkında neler söyleyeceğim? Dostum Estragon'la, burada gece olana kadar Godot'yu beklediğimi mi? Pozzo'nun hamalıyla birlikte geçip bizimle konuştuğunu mu? Muhtemelen. Ama bütün bunların içinde ne kadar doğruluk payı olacak? O hiçbir şeyin farkında olmayacak. Yediği tekmelerden söz edecek, ben de ona havuç vereceğim. Bir ayağımız mezarda, zor bir doğum doğrusu. Mezarcı çukurun dibinde forsepsi yerleştirir. İhtiyarlığa vakit var daha önümüzde. Hava çığlıklarımızla dolu. Ama alışkanlıklar duyarsızlaştırıyor insanı. Bana da bir başkası bakarak, uyuyor diyor. Kendisinin de uyuduğunun farkına varmadan uyuyor, hiçbir şey bilmiyor. Uyusun bakalım diyor, benim için. Böyle devam edemem. Ne dedim ben?”

Vladimir
Author:Samuel Beckett
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“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 . . .”

UncertaintyNew BeginningsUncertainties In LifeRelocating
Book:The Unnamable
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