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

“Life isn’t some walk in the park where you can make wishes on dandelions. Life is work. Life is a journey of triumphs and sorrows. Of successes and failures. Of learning experiences and growing opportunities. You can’t sit back and expect different results when you’re not doing anything to change.”
― Meghan Quinn, quote from Dear Life


“Donald Trump, a man whose idea of policy is a big wall, was the Republican front-runner for months, and ceded the lead to a man who wants to fight immigrants with drones. This whole thing is a joke.”
― Matt Taibbi, quote from Insane Clown President: Dispatches from the 2016 Circus


“I’m here now, and I’m not letting you go until I give you everything I am … And if it’s still not enough, if you still won’t believe me, then I’ll keep trying. Over and over. Until you realize that you could have come to me shattered, broken, in an infinite of pieces, and I would’ve made you whole. I would have loved you. Every damaged piece of you. In all ways and for always.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Coast


“I imagined, too. And so imagination became my nemesis; my mind created monsters out of nothing.”
― Samantha Shannon, quote from The Song Rising


“With a clear moment of insight, Charls saw that Lamen was not a cloth merchant’s assistant. He was the prince’s private companion, and had no real skills whatsoever.”
― C.S. Pacat, quote from The Adventures of Charls, the Veretian Cloth Merchant


Interesting books

Little Fires Everywhere
(134.7K)
Little Fires Everywh...
by Celeste Ng
The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl
(6.2K)
The Astonishing Adve...
by Barry Lyga
The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America's Finest Hour
(1.1K)
Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos
(14.5K)
Parallel Worlds: A J...
by Michio Kaku
Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman
(16.7K)
Genius: The Life and...
by James Gleick
Doctor Who: The Silent Stars Go By
(2.1K)
Doctor Who: The Sile...
by Dan Abnett

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.