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

“I’ve searched for the path to God all my life— I know you have— —and now I’ve found it and I can’t believe it. It feels like I’m sitting here, writing this to myself. You are.”
― Neale Donald Walsch, quote from Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 1


“Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”
― Nelson DeMille, quote from The Charm School


“And I start to say, no.
Start to ask him to please just take it off and put it away.
Start to explain how it holds far too many memories for me.
But then I remember what Damen said once about memories - that they're haunting things.
And because I refuse to be haunted by mine - I just take a deep breath and smile when I say, "You know, I think it looks really good on you. You should defiantly keep it.”
― Alyson Noel, quote from Night Star


“You're the oddest person I've ever met, you couldn't get rid of me if you tried.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, quote from Her Fearful Symmetry


“I'll have you in my bed again, Sentinel. And at my side. That is a promise.”
― Chloe Neill, quote from Hard Bitten


Interesting books

The Circle
(148.4K)
The Circle
by Dave Eggers
The Vampire's Assistant
(34.4K)
The Vampire's Assist...
by Darren Shan
At the Mountains of Madness
(24.8K)
At the Mountains of...
by H.P. Lovecraft
Trout Fishing in America
(9.7K)
Trout Fishing in Ame...
by Richard Brautigan
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
(22.1K)
We Wish to Inform Yo...
by Philip Gourevitch
Child of God
(24.4K)
Child of God
by Cormac McCarthy

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.