Quotes from Endgame & Act Without Words

Samuel Beckett ·  96 pages

Rating: (8.4K votes)


“CLOV:
Do you believe in the life to come?
HAMM:
Mine was always that.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame & Act Without Words


“HAMM
Open the window.
CLOV
What for?
HAMM
I want to hear the sea.
CLOV
You wouldn't hear it.
HAMM Even if you opened the window?
CLOV
No.
HAMM
Then it's not worth opening it?
CLOV
No.
HAMM(violently)
Then open it!”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame & Act Without Words


“You weep, and weep, for nothing, so as not to laugh, and little by little . . . you begin to grieve.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame & Act Without Words


“CLOV [sadly] No one that ever lived ever thought so crooked as we.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame & Act Without Words


“There’s something dripping in my head. [Pause.] A heart, a heart in my head.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame & Act Without Words



“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.]”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame & Act Without Words


“I open the door of the cell and go. I am so bowed I only see my feet, if I open my eyes, and between my legs a little trail of black dust. I say to myself that the earth is extinguished, though I never saw it lit.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Endgame & Act Without Words


About the author

Samuel Beckett
Born place: in Foxrock (Dublin), Ireland
Born date April 13, 1906
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“No one except your husband knows of the cautiousness at the heart of your life. Your adulthood has been a progressive retreat from curiosity and wonder, an endless series of delays and procrastinations. You wanted to be so much, once, but life kept on getting in the way... You settled. Shunned creativity, flight, risk, never had the courage to give a dream, any dream, a go.”
― Nikki Gemmell, quote from The Bride Stripped Bare


“(The Revsons apparently did not like a young psychologist named Joyce Brothers, who appeared as an expert on boxing. Thus the questions given her were exceptionally hard—they even asked her the names of referees—in the desire to get her off the show; their strategy had no effect: She became the second person to win $64,000.)”
― David Halberstam, quote from The Fifties


“Minnows and catfish can recognize each member of their own species by his particular, person-specific odor. It is hard to imagine a solitary, independent, existentialist minnow, recognizable for himself alone; minnows in a school behave like interchangeable, identical parts of an organism. But there it is.”
― Lewis Thomas, quote from The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher


“When Communism fell in 1989, the temptation for Western commentators to gloat triumphantly proved irresistible. This, it was declared, marked the end of History. Henceforth, the world belonged to liberal capitalism – there was no alternative – and we would all march forward in unison towards a future shaped by peace, democracy and free markets. Twenty years on this assertion looks threadbare.

There can be no question that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the domino-like collapse of Communism states from the suburbs of Vienna to the shores of the Pacific marked a very significant transition: one in which millions of men and women were liberated from a dismal and defunct ideology and its authoritarian institutions. But no one could credibly assert that what replaced Communism was an era of idyllic tranquility. There was no peace in post-Communist Yugoslavia, and precious little democracy in any of the successor states of the Soviet Union.

As for free markets, they surely flourished, but it is not clear for whom. The West – Europe and the United States above all – missed a once-in-a-century opportunity to re-shape the world around agreed and improved international institutions and practices. Instead, we sat back and congratulated ourselves upon having won the Cold War: a sure way to lose the peace. The years from 1989 to 2009 were consumed by locusts.”
― Tony Judt, quote from Ill Fares the Land


“Part of what we pick up in looking at Jesus in the gospel is a way of viewing the whole world. That worldview informs all our values and deeply shapes our thinking and decision-making. Another part of what we absorb is greater confidence in Jesus' counsel and his promises. This has its own powerful effect on what we fear and desire and choose. Another part of what we take up from beholding the glory of Christ is greater delight in his fellowship and deeper longing to see him in heaven. This has its own liberating effect from the temptations of this world. All these have their own peculiar way of changing us into the likeness of Christ. Therefore, we should not think that pursuing likeness to Christ has no other components than just looking at Jesus. Looking at Jesus produces holiness along many different paths.”
― John Piper, quote from God Is the Gospel: Meditations on God's Love as the Gift of Himself


Interesting books

Abhorsen
(90.5K)
Abhorsen
by Garth Nix
The Storyteller
(135.1K)
The Storyteller
by Jodi Picoult
Thud!
(52.5K)
Thud!
by Terry Pratchett
Black Boy
(41.9K)
Black Boy
by Richard Wright
Reason to Breathe
(81.1K)
Reason to Breathe
by Rebecca Donovan
Mere Christianity
(221.4K)
Mere Christianity
by C.S. Lewis

About BookQuoters

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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.