The collection / 129 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01c. 1947 AD

We always find something, eh Didi, to let us think we exist?

Samuel Beckett / quote

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02c. 1947 AD

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.

Samuel Beckett / quote

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03c. 1947 AD

Have you shat, my child, I said gently.

Samuel Beckett / quote

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04c. 1947 AD

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 / quote

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05c. 1947 AD

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 / quote

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06c. 1947 AD

I lay down across her with my face in her breasts and my hand on her. We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down, and from side to side.(Pause. Krapp's lips move. No sound.)Past midnight. Never knew such silence. The earth might be uninhabited.

Samuel Beckett / quote

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07c. 1947 AD

He sometimes halted without saying anything. Either he had finally nothing to say or while having something to say he finally decided not to say it.

Samuel Beckett / quote

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08c. 1947 AD

In reality I said nothing at all, but I heard a murmur, something gone wrong with the silence, and I pricked up my ears, like an animal I imagine, which gives a start and pretends to be dead.

Samuel Beckett / quote

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09c. 1947 AD

There's my life, 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 a story, 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.

Samuel Beckett / quote

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10c. 1947 AD

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 / quote

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11c. 1947 AD

Boys my age with whom, in spite of everything, I was obliged to mix occasionally, mocked me.

Samuel Beckett / quote

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12c. 1947 AD

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.

Samuel Beckett / quote

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13c. 1947 AD

When I penetrate into that house, if I ever do, it will be to go on turning, faster and faster, more and more convulsive, like a constipated dog, or one suffering from worms, overturning furniture, in the midst of my family all trying to embrace me at once, until by virtue of a supreme spasm I am catapulted in the opposite direction and gradually leave backwards, without having said good evening.

Samuel Beckett / quote

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14c. 1947 AD

Perhaps after all she put me in her rectum. A matter of complete indifference to me, I needn't tell you. But is it true love, in the rectum? That's what bothers me sometimes. Have I never known true love, after all?

Samuel Beckett / quote

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15c. 1947 AD

The creation of the world did not take place once and for all time, but takes place every day.

Samuel Beckett / quote

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16c. 1947 AD

My master then, assuming he is solitary, in my image, wishes me well, poor devil, wishes my good, and if he does not seem to do very much in order not to be disappointed it is because there is not very much to be done or, better still, because there is nothing to be done, otherwise he would have done it, my great and good master, that must be it, long ago, poor devil. Another supposition, he has taken the necessary steps, his will is done as far as I am concerned (for he may have other protégés) and all is well with me without my knowing it. Cases one and two. I’ll consider the former first, if I can. Then I’ll admire the latter, if my eyes are still open.

Samuel Beckett / quote

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17c. 1947 AD

In an instant all will vanish and we'll be alone once more, in the midst of nothingness.

Samuel Beckett / quote

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18c. 1947 AD

Nor did he think of Celia any more, though he could sometimes remember having dreamt of her. If only he had been able to think of her, he would not have needed to dream of her.

Samuel Beckett / quote

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19c. 1947 AD

Estragon: They're too bigVladimir: Perhaps you'll have socks some day

Samuel Beckett / quote

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20c. 1947 AD

She was willing a little bit of sweated labour, incapable of betraying the slogan of her slavers, that since the customer or sucker was paying for his gutrot ten times what it cost to produce and five times what it cost to fling in his face, it was only reasonable to defer to his complaints up to but not exceeding fifty per cent of his exploitation.

Samuel Beckett / quote

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21c. 1947 AD

I tried to groan, Help! Help! But the tone that came out was that of polite conversation.

Samuel Beckett / quote

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22c. 1947 AD

My mother. I don't think too harshly of her. I know she did all she could not to have me, except of course the one thing, and if she never succeeded in getting me unstuck, it was that fate had earmarked me for less compassionate sewers.

Samuel Beckett / quote

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23c. 1947 AD

But it is only since I have ceased to live that I think of these things and the other things. It is in the tranquillity of decomposition that I remember the long confused emotion which was my life, and that I judge it, as it is said that God will judge me, and with no less impertinence. To decompose is to live too, I know, I know, don't torment me, but one sometimes forgets.

Samuel Beckett / quote

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24c. 1947 AD

She began stroking my ankles. I considered kicking her in the cunt.

Samuel Beckett / quote

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