Quotes from Murphy

“The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“Any fool can turn a blind eye but who knows what the ostrich sees in the sand.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“She felt, as she felt so often with Murphy, spattered with words that went dead as soon as they sounded; each word obliterated, before it had time to make sense, by the word that came next; so that in the end she did not know what had been said. It was like difficult music heard for the first time.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“The sensation of the seat of a chair coming together with his drooping posteriors at last was so delicious that he rose at once and repeated the sit, lingeringly and with intense concentration. Murphy did not so often meet with these tendernesses that he could afford to treat them casually. The second sit, however, was a great disappointment.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“But how much more pleasant was the sensation of being a missile without provenance or target, caught up in a tumult of non-Newtonian motion. So pleasant that pleasant was not the word.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“He was split, one part of him never left this mental chamber that pictured itself as a sphere full of light fading into dark, because there was no way out. But motion in this world depended on rest in the world outside. A man is in bed, wanting to sleep. A rat is behind the wall at his head, wanting to move. The man hears the rat fidget and cannot sleep, the rat hears the man fidget and dares not move. They are both unhappy, one fidgeting and the other waiting, or both happy, the rat moving and the man sleeping.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“So all things limp together for the only possible.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“Yes or no?' said Murphy. The eternal tautology.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“the last at last seen of him
himself unseen by him
and of himself"

A rest.

The last Mr. Murphy saw of Mr. Endon was Mr. Murphy unseen by Mr. Endon. This was also the last Murphy saw of Murphy."

A rest.

The relation between Mr. Murphy and Mr. Endon could not have better summed up than by the former's sorrow at seeing himself in the latter's immunity from seeing anything but himself."

A long rest.

Mr. Murphy is a speck in Mr. Endon's unseen.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“You, my body, my mind...one must go.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“And life in his mind gave him pleasure, such pleasure that pleasure was not the word.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“As it is with the love of the body, so with the friendship of the mind, the full is only reached by admittance to the most retired places.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“the last at last seen of him
himself unseen by him
and of himself”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“It was a strange room, the door hanging off its hinges, and yet a telephone. But its last occupant was a harlot, long past her best, which had been scarlet.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“The syndrome known as life is too diffuse to admit of palliation. For every symptom that is eased, another is made worse. The horse leech's daughter is a closed system. Her quantum of wantum cannot vary.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“Neary’s conception of friendship was very curious. He expected it to last. He never said, when speaking of an enemy: “He used to be a friend of mine”, but always, with affected precision: “I used to think he was a friend of mine.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“Some hours later Cooper took the packet of ash from his pocket, where earlier in the evening he had put it for greater security, and threw it angrily at a man who had given him great offence. It bounced, burst, off the wall on to the floor, where at once it became the object of much dribbling, passing, trapping, shooting, punching, heading and even some recognition from the gentleman's code. By closing time the body, mind and soul of Murphy were freely distributed over the floor of the saloon; and before another dayspring greyened the earth had been swept away with the sand, the beer, the butts, the glass, the matches, the spits, the vomit.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“Nor did he think of Celia any more, though he could sometimes remember having dreamt of her. If only he had been able to think of her, he would not have needed to dream of her.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“هر عارضه‌ای که تسکین پیدا کند عارضه‌ای دیگر به وخامت می‌گراید.
بشر یک چاه است با دو سطل. یکی پایین می‌رود تا پر شود، دیگری بالا می‌آید تا خالی شود ...”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“But politeness and candour run together, when one is not fitting neither is the other. Then the occasion calls for silence, that frail partition between the ill-concealed and the ill-revealed, the clumsily false and the unavoidably so.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“The ludicrous fever of toys struggling skyward, the sky itself more and more remote, the wind tearing the awning of cloud to tatters, pale limitless blue and green recessions laced with strands of scud, the light failing—once she would have noticed these things.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“It was like looking for a needle in a haystack full of vipers.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“She was willing a little bit of sweated labour, incapable of betraying the slogan of her slavers, that since the customer or sucker was paying for his gutrot ten times what it cost to produce and five times what it cost to fling in his face, it was only reasonable to defer to his complaints up to but not exceeding fifty per cent of his exploitation.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“He had a curious hunted walk, like that of a destitute diabetic in a strange city.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

About the author

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Interesting books

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.