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Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett Quotes

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Famous Samuel Beckett Quotes

“What a joy 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 blissful knowledge you are nobody for all eternity. A pity I should have to give tongue at the same time, it prevents it from bleeding in peace, licking the lips.”

KnowsGivingShouldJoyShould HaveEternityLipsTonguePityBleedingBeing ThereRacksLicking
Book:Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable
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“She felt, as she felt so often with Murphy, spattered with words that went dead as soon as they sounded; each word obliterated, before it had time to make sense, by the word that came next; so that in the end she did not know what had been said. It was like difficult music heard for the first time.”

KnowsFirstsSaidEndsNextFeltDifficultHeardFirst TimeMake SenseMurphy
Book:I Can't Go On, I'll Go On: A Samuel Beckett Reader
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“I always thought old age would be a writer’s best chance. Whenever I read the late work of Goethe or W. B. Yeats I had the impertinence to identify with it. Now, my memory’s gone, all the old fluency’s disappeared. I don’t write a single sentence without saying to myself, ‘It’s a lie!’ So I know I was right. It’s the best chance I’ve ever had.”

KnowsWritingWould BeAgeLyingMemoriesChanceGoneLateSentencesOld AgeFluencySingle SentenceYeatsImpertinence
Author:Samuel Beckett
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“If you don't know where you are currently standing, you're dead.”

IfsKnowsGoalStandingBaseballPlanningSettingWhere You AreTime TravelYankeesSetting GoalsNew York YankeesLife GoalFuture PlansBaseball PlayerGreat TravelInspiring TravelTravel AdventureIsmsAdventure And TravelFamous BaseballAchieving Your GoalsCatchersGreat BaseballInspirational AdventureReaching Your GoalsRoads TraveledDreams And GoalsGoals And LifeAchieving GoalsInspirational GoalAlice Adventures In WonderlandInspirational Goal SettingMotivational GoalFocus On GoalsGoals And ObjectivesInspirational Adventure TimeMotivation Goal SettingGoals And MotivationTravel ExperienceGoals DreamsYankees BaseballReaching GoalsGoals And AmbitionsFork In The RoadGreatest BaseballRight RoadRoad LifeClear GoalsFuture PlanningRealistic GoalsYour Dreams And GoalsPlanning And Success
Author:Samuel Beckett
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“...and a dream away in space with neither her nor there where all the footsteps ever fell can never fare nearer to anywhere nor from anywhere further away. Nor for in the end again by degrees or as though switched on dark falls there again that certain dark that alone certain ashes can. Through it who knows yet another end beneath a cloudless sky of a last end if ever there had to be another absolutely had to be.”

IfsKnowsEndsDreamLastsCertainFallDarkSpaceSkyDegreesAshesFootsteps
Book:New Writing and Writers
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“The essential is never to arrive anywhere, never to be anywhere. The essential is to go on squirming forever at the edge of the line, as long as there are waters and banks and ravening in heaven a sporting God to plague his creature, per pro his chosen shits. I've swallowed three hooks and am still hungry. Hence the howls. What a joy to know where one is, and where one will stay, without being there. Nothing to do but strech out comfortably on the rack, in the blissful knowledge you are nobody for eternity.”

KnowsLongStillsJoyThreeHeavenWaterLinesForeverGoes OnCreaturesEssentialsEternityEdgesHungryChosenHookPlagueBeing ThereHowlRacks
Author:Samuel Beckett
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“...you must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange pain, strange sin, you must go on, perhaps it's done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, 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”

IfsKnowsLongSaidI CanDoneStoriesPainSinSilenceDoorsStrangeGoes OnSurpriseFind MeThresholdSurprise Me
Author:Samuel Beckett
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