Quotes from Endgame

“I use the words you taught me. If they don't mean anything any more, teach me others. Or let me be silent.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that… Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing. Yes, it's like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don't laugh any more.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“HAMM: We're not beginning to... to... mean something?
CLOV: Mean something! You and I, mean something!
(Brief laugh.) Ah that's a good one!”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“Use your head, can't you, use your head, you're on earth, there's no cure for that!”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“I love order. It's my dream. A world where all would be silent and still, and each thing in its last place, under the last dust.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“God damn you to hell, Sir, no, it's indecent, there are limits! In six days, do you hear me, six days, God made the world. Yes Sir, no less Sir, the WORLD! And you are not bloody well capable of making me a pair of trousers in three months!'
'But my dear Sir, my dear Sir, look at the world and look at my TROUSERS!”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“All life long, the same questions, the same answers.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“Do you believe in the life to come? Mine was always that.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“Finished, it's finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished. Grain upon grain, one by one, and one day, suddenly, there's a heap, a little heap, the impossible heap. I can't be punished any more. I'll go now to my kitchen, ten feet by ten feet by ten feet, and wait for him to whistle me. Nice dimensions, nice proportions, I'll lean on the table, and look at the wall, and wait for him to whistle me.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“My anger subsides, I'd like to pee.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“Clov: If I don't kill the rat, he'll die.
Hamm: That's right.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“Old endgame lost of old, play and lose and have done with losing.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“It's a rare thing not to have been bonny-- once.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“HAMM:
Scoundrel! Why did you engender me?
NAGG:
I didn't know.
HAMM:
What? What didn't you know?
NAGG:
That it'd be you.
(Pause.)”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“Hamm: And the horizon? Nothing on the horizon?
Clov: (Lowering the telescope, turning towards Hamm, exasperated): What in God's name would there be on the horizon? (Pause.)
Hamm: The waves, how are the waves?
Clov: The waves? (He turns the telescope on the waves.) Lead.
Hamm: And the sun?
Clove: (Looking) Zero.
Hamm: But it should be sinking. Look again.
Clov: (Looking) Damn the sun.
Hamm: Is it night already then?
Clov: (Looking) No.
Hamm: Then what is it?
Clov: (Looking) Gray. (Lowering the telescope, turning towards Hamm, louder.) Gray! (Pause, still louder.) GRRAY!”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“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.)”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“There's something dripping in my head. A heart, a heart in my head.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“La fin est dans le commencement et cependant on continue.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“Clov: Why this farce, day after day?
Hamm: Routine. One never knows. [Pause.] Last night I saw inside my breast. There was a big sore.
Clov: Pah! You saw your heart.
Hamm: No, it was living. [Pause. Anguished.] Clov!
Clov: Yes.
Hamm: What's happening?
Clov: Something is taking its course. [Pause.]
Hamm: Clov!
Clov: [impatiently] What is it?
Hamm: We're not beginning to ... to ... mean something?
Clov: Mean something! You and I, mean something! [Brief laugh.] Ah that's a good one!
Hamm: I wonder. [Pause.]”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“Il y a une goutte d'eau dans ma tête. (Un temps) Un coeur, un coeur dans ma tête.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“Io mi dico... qualche volta, Clov, bisogna che tu riesca a soffrire meglio di così, se vuoi che si stanchino di punirti... un giorno. Mi dico... qualche volta, Clov, bisogna che tu sia presente meglio di così, se vuoi che ti la­scino partire... un giorno. Ma mi sento troppo vec­chio, e troppo lontano, per poter formare nuove abi­tudini. Bene, e allora non finirà proprio mai, non partirò proprio mai. (Pausa). Poi, un giorno, all'im­provviso, ecco che finisce, che cambia, io non capi­sco, ecco che muore, o forse sono io, non capisco neanche questo. Io lo domando alle parole che re­stano... sonno, risveglio, sera, mattina. Ma loro non sanno dirmi niente. (Pausa). Apro la porta del ca­pannone e me ne vado. Sono talmente curvo che ve­do solo i miei piedi, se apro gli occhi, e tra le gambe un po' di polvere nerastra. Mi dico che la terra si è spenta, benché io non l'abbia mai vista accesa. (Pau­sa). È facile andare. (Pausa). Quando cadrò, pian­gerò di gioia.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“Mais voyons ! Si elle se tenait coïte nous serions baisés.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“This is slow work. . . .Is it not time for my pain-killer?”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“Then one day, suddenly, it ends, it changes, I don’t understand, it dies, or it’s me, I don’t understand that either. I ask the words that remain— sleeping, waking, morning, evening. They have nothing to say.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“Enough, it’s time it ended, in the refuge too. And yet I hestitate, I hestitate to… to end. Yes, there it is, it’s time it ended and yet I hestitate to – (he yawns) – to end.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

“Un giorno dirai a te stesso. Sono stanco, vado a sedermi, e andrai a sederti. Poi dirai a te stesso, Ho fame, ora mi alzo e mi preparo da mangiare. Ma non ti alzerai. Dirai a te stesso. Ho fatto male a sedermi, ma visto che mi sono seduto resterò seduto ancora un poco, poi mi alzerò e mi preparerò da mangiare. Ma non ti alzerai e non ti preparerai da mangiare. / Guarderai il muro per un poco, poi dirai a te stesso, Ora chiuderò gli occhi, forse dormirò un poco, dopo andrà meglio, e li chiuderai. E quando li riaprirai il muro non ci sarà più. Intorno a te ci sarà il vuoto infinito, tutti i morti di tutti i tempi non basterebbero, risuscitando, a colmarlo, e sarai come un sassolino in mezzo alla steppa. / Sì, un giorno saprai cosa vuol dire, sarai come me, solo che tu non avrai nessuno, perchè tu non avrai avuto pietà di nessuno e non ci sarà più nessuno di cui aver pietà.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame

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Popular quotes

“Eat, woman,” he bellowed, leaning over her, prepared to force the remainder of her meal into her opened mouth.
“I would,” she said in a strained voice, “But there is a giant attached to my chin. Perhaps if he would be so gracious as to remove the cured pork from my pack, I would share it with him.”
Rautu’s eyes blazed in senseless joy. He released his companion and hastened toward her effects, rummaging through them with great anticipation. He found a small brown parchment parcel and assumed that this was the source of his happiness. He sniffed the outside of the paper and hummed in delight for the exquisite scent. He tore open the barrier between him and his prize and he was compelled to smile when remarking the numerous slices of meat in his hands. He began eating them immediately, leaving no time between one slice and the next to savour that which he had longed to again taste. The superior fare of Frewyn had been the chief of his consolation during the war, and if he was to remain on the islands with all its splendor, all its comforting familiarity, all its temperate climate, and all its horrendous food, he would relish this last ember of bliss before being made to suffer a diet of steamed grains again.
“I did say share,” the commander called out.
“I am responsible for securing your life,” he replied with a full mouth and without turning around.
“And I thanked you accordingly.” The commander’s remonstrations were unanswered, and she scoffed in aversion as she watched the voracious beast consume nearly all the provisions she had been saving for the return journey. “I know you shall not be satisfied until you have all the tribute in the world, but that pork does belong to me, Rau.”
“You are not permitted to have meat while taking our medicines,” he said, dismissively.
She peered at him in circumspection. “I don’t recall you mentioning that stipulation before. I find it convenient that you should care to do so now.”
The giant paused, his cheeks filled with pork. “And?” he said, shoving another slice into his mouth.
“And,” she laughed, “You’re going to allow me to starve on your inedible bread while you skulk off with something that was meant for both of us?”
“Perhaps.”
“Savior, indeed,” the commander fleered. “You have saved me from one means of death only to plunge me into another.”
― Michelle Franklin, quote from The Commander And The Den Asaan Rautu

“The one thing that could never die or be buried was my loyalty to Cameron for everything he’d done for me and what we’d been through together, even if that loyalty was a ghost.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from Sweethearts

“courage was not the absence of fear, but the ability to walk into unknown territory despite it.”
― Samantha Young, quote from River Cast

“I really am ruggedly handsome, aren't I?”
― Richard Castle, quote from Heat Rises

“The other four houses yielded jewelry, wallets, credit cards, laptops, iPads and Kindles, even a couple of expensive looking vases....

"You didn't do anything stupid like writing IOUs and signing your name, did you?"
"That's an excellent idea," said Danny. He stepped back through the gate, waited for a count of five, and then returned to Eric. Now Eric was standing, and when he saw Danny he visibly sagged with relief. "What kind of moron are you?"
"The fun-loving kind," said Danny. "I'm not an idiot, of course I didn't sign my name to IOUs."
"Good."
"I signed yours.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from The Lost Gate - Shadow of the Hegemon

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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