Samuel Beckett

Playwright Novelist Irish 1906 – 1989

Irish writer known for Waiting for Godot and absurdist theater.

423 quotes

"It all comes down to the question of probability."
"Time doesn't pass, it fails to pass."
Time
"The chronic suffering of existence itself."
Life
"Let us not waste our time in idle discourse. Let us do something, while we have the chance."
"I can see you now, looking at me across the years."
Time
"We are dying, all of us, all the time."
"The essential doesn't change."
Truth
"Light, light, the most beautiful thing of all."
Beauty
"I was born betrayed and I have no love of life."
Life
"Since things are the way they are, things as they are will remain the way they are."
Philosophy
"One's deadened by the terrible decay of time."
Time
"It is not a question of accomplishing anything at all."
Wisdom
"The confusion is my only certainty."
Truth
"Words are all we have and they are all we need."
Literature
"I'm in the world, but not of it."
Solitude
"To be an artist one must be prepared to be ridiculous."
Art
"The more I know about myself, the less I understand."
"I feel a kind of sinking sensation."
"Everything is relative."
Philosophy
"Silence, yes, but what kind of silence?"
Peace
"The night is my kingdom."
Solitude
"I can't go on, I'll go on."
Perseverance
"Nothing is funnier than unhappiness."
Humor
"We are waiting for Godot."
Hope
"The tears of the world are a constant quantity."
Truth
"To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now."
Art
"Habit is a great deadener."
Life
"The best thing for being sad is to learn something."
Knowledge
"One day we were born, one day we will die."
Death
"I would prefer not to."
Freedom