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Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett Quotes

Novelist

Samuel Beckett was an Irish novelist, playwright, and poet, widely regarded as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. His works are characterized by their minimalist style, existential themes, and use of language. His most famous works include 'Waiting for Godot' and 'Molloy'. Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969.

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All Godot Knows Waiting For Godot Ifs Love Beckett Ends Thinking Art Littles Silence Life Goes On Time Waiting Writing Death Men Mind Samuel Beckett

Famous Samuel Beckett Quotes

“The dust will not settle in our time. And when it does some great roaring machine will come and whirl it all skyhigh again.”

Doe Art Philosophy History Machines Dust Settling Our Time Roaring

Book:All That Fall and Other Plays for Radio and Screen

Source: All That Fall and Other Plays for Radio and Screen

“We could have saved sixpence. We could have saved fivepence. But at what cost?”

Art Philosophy History Cost Saved

Author:Samuel Beckett

“That's what hell must be like, small chat to the babbling of Lethe about the good old days when we wished we were dead.”

Art Philosophy History Hell Old Days Good Old Days Babbling Lethe

Author:Samuel Beckett

“We should have thought of it when the world was young, in the nineties.”

World Should Art Philosophy Young History Should Have

Book:Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts

Source: Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts

“There is at least this to be said for mind, that it can dispel mind.”

Mind Art Said Skepticism

Book:Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment

Source: Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment

“An imaginative adventure does not enjoy the same corsets as reportage.”

Doe Art Enjoy Imagination Adventure Imaginative Corsets

Book:Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment

Source: Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment

“Art has always been this--pure interrogation, rhetorical question less the rhetoric--whatever else it may have been obliged by social reality to appear.”

May Has Beens Art Reality Literature Social Pure Rhetoric Obliged Rhetorical Interrogation Rhetorical Question

Book:Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment

Source: Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment

“The time is perhaps not altogether too green for the vile suggestion that art has nothing to do with clarity, does not dabble in the clear and does not make clear, and more than the light of day (or night) makes the subsolar, -lunar, and -stellar excrement. Art is the sun, moon, and stars of the mind, the whole mind.”

Mind Doe Art Whole Light Night Literature Stars Sun Clear Moon Art Is Green Clarity Suggestions Obscurity Moon And Stars Stellar Sun Moon Sun Moon And Stars

Author:Samuel Beckett

“When the object is perceived as particular and unique and not merely the member of a family, when it appears independent of any general notion and detached from the sanity of a cause, isolated and inexplicable in the light of ignorance, then and only then may it be a source of enchantment.”

May Art Light Causes Objects Ignorance Particular Source Members Unique Independent Notion Sanity Isolated Detached Enchantment Inexplicable

Book:The collected works of Samuel Beckett

Source: The collected works of Samuel Beckett

“No painting is more replete than Mondrian's.”

Book:Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment

Source: Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment

“The situation is that of him who is helpless, cannot act, in the event cannot paint, since he is obliged to paint. The act is of him who, helpless, unable to act, acts, in the event paints, since he is obliged to paint.”

Art Literature Situation Events Paint Helpless Obliged

Book:Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment

Source: Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment

“I speak for an art ... weary of its puny exploits, weary of pretending to be able, of being able, of doing a little better the same old thing, of going a little further along a dreary road.”

Littles Art Able Speak Pretending Weary Exploits Dreary Old Things Same Old Thing

Author:Samuel Beckett

“My characters have nothing. I'm working with impotence, ignorance... that whole zone of being that has always been set aside by artists as something unusable - something by definition incompatible with art.”

Art Whole Character Artist Ignorance Definitions Zone Impotence

Author:Samuel Beckett

“Personally I have no bone to pick with graveyards.”

Art Philosophy Reality History Picks Bones Graveyard

Author:Samuel Beckett

“Art has nothing to do with clarity, does not dabble in the clear and does not make clear”

Doe Art Clear Clarity

Book:Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment

Source: Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment

“I say me, knowing all the while it's not me.”

Art Philosophy History Knowing Awareness

Author:Samuel Beckett

“To be an artist is to fail, as no other dare fail, that failure is his world and the shrink from desertion, art and craft, good housekeeping, living.”

World Art Artist Failing Dare Crafts Shrinks Housekeeping Desertion Arts And Crafts Good Housekeeping

Book:Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment

Source: Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment

About the Author

Born: April 13, 1906
Died: December 22, 1989
Known for: Novelist
Quotes: 457

Related Topics

Godot Knows Waiting For Godot Ifs Love Beckett Ends Thinking Art Littles Silence Life Goes On Time Waiting Writing Death Men Mind Samuel Beckett

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

MolloyRelated source material

I Can't Go On, I'll Go On: A Samuel Beckett ReaderRelated source material

Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The UnnamableRelated source material

Waiting for GodotRelated source material

The Complete Dramatic Works of Samuel BeckettRelated source material

The UnnamableRelated source material

The Complete Short Prose, 1929-1989Related source material

WattRelated source material

MurphyRelated source material

Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragmentRelated source material

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