artist

beauty

blame

blindness

boredom

cure

dachshund

darkness

death

difficult

Dublin University

electricity

essential

failure

Friday

habit

healing

James Joyce

knowledge

life

love

madness

mediocrity

Monday

moralist

nothing

object

perception

poetry

Saturday

sharing

silence

sloth

solution

sorrow

suffering

Sunday

Thursday

time

Tuesday

unhappiness

waiting

Wednesday

word

writer's block

yesterday

nationality

Irish

occupation / innovator as

playwright

film director

linguist

screenwriter

cricketer

poet

novelist

translator

World War II

scientific organization

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

intellectual movement

Nouveau Roman

is not at all concerned with clarity, does not dabble in the clear and does not make clear.

Art has nothing to do with clarity, does not dabble in the clear and does not make clear. (Samuel Beckett)

is pure interrogation, rhetorical question less the rhetoric.

Art has always been this--pure interrogation, rhetorical question less the rhetoric--whatever else it may have been obliged by social reality to appear.

is an experience whose main condition is suffering.

Suffering is the main condition of the artistic experience.

is, today, one whose task is to find a form that accommodates the mess.

To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now.

is what becket calls the kind of bait he does not rise to any more. ..

But I do not think so, I do not think I am wrong in saying that these rejoicings will take place in my absence, this year. I have that feeling, I have had it now for some days, and I credit it. But in what does it differ from those that have abused me ever since I was born' No, that is the kind of bait I do not rise to any more, my need for prettiness is gone. (Beckett 'malone dies' : 1)

is curious in that the blind have no notion of time or of the things of time.

The blind have no notion of time. The things of time are hidden from them too.

is the most tolerable because the most durable of human evils.

The pendulum oscillates between these two terms: Suffering-that opens a window on the real and is the main condition of the artistic experience, and Boredom ... that must be considered as the most tolerable because the most durable of human evils.

is an animal for which it makes very little difference to their appearance whether they stand, sit or lie.

There is this to be said for Dachsunds of such length and lowness as Nelly, that it makes very little difference to their appearance whether they stand, sit or lie.

 accumulates, thickens, then suddenly bursts and drowns everything.

But I know what darkness is, it accumulates, thickens, then suddenly bursts and drowns everything.

is a rather unremarkable thing. The day that one dies will be like any other day, only shorter.

The day that you die will be like any other day...only shorter.

is a compromise effected between an individual and his environment.

Habit is a compromise effected between an individual and his environment.

is a compromise effected between the individual and his environment, or between the individual and his own organic eccentricities, the guarantee of a dull inviolability, the lightning-conductor of his existence.

Habit is a compromise effected between the individual and his environment, or between the individual and his own organic eccentricities, the guarantee of a dull inviolability, the lightning-conductor of his existence.

is humanities defining feature. Life itself is but a succession of habits.

Life is habit. Or rather life is a succession of habits. (Samuel Beckett)

is the ballast that chains the dog to his vomit.

Habit is the ballast that chains the dog to his vomit. (Samuel Beckett)

is not the only path for insight. Beckett abandoned knowledge to focus on his own impoverishment, his own stupidity, ignorance, and impotence, to focus on a lack of knowledge and in taking away, in subtracting rather than adding.

Beckett claimed he was faced with the possibility of being eternally in the shadow of Joyce, certain to never best him at his own game. Then he had a revelation, as Knowlson says, which 'has rightly been regarded as a pivotal moment in his entire career.' Knowlson goes on to explain the revelation as told to him by Beckett himself: 'In speaking of his own revelation, Beckett tended to focus on the recognition of his own stupidity . . . and on his concern with impotence and ignorance. He reformulated this for me, while attempting to define his debt to James Joyce: 'I realized that Joyce had gone as far as one could in the direction of knowing more, [being] in control of one's material. He was always adding to it... you only have to look at his proofs to see that. I realized that my own way was in impoverishment, in lack of knowledge and in taking away, in subtracting rather than in adding.'' Knowlson explains: 'Beckett was rejecting the Joycean principle that knowing more was a way of creatively understanding the world and controlling it . . . In future, his work would focus on poverty, failure, exile and loss -as he put it, on man as a 'non-knower' and as a 'non-can-er.'' (beckett wikipedia)

Life is habit. Or rather life is a succession of habits.

is a desert of loneliness and recrimination.

That desert of loneliness and recrimination that men call love.

is what we all are at birth. Some remain so.

We are all born mad. Some remain so. (Samuel Beckett)

is not the worst of all things. Some of us are not made for the great light that devours, but are instead given a dim lamp and patience without end, to shine it on the empty shadows.

But I was not made for the great light that devours, a dim lamp was all I had been given, and patience without end, to shine it on the empty shadows.

Samuel BeckettThinkers

Samuel Beckett