Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckettwas a French-Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet, who lived in Paris for most of his adult life and wrote in both English and French. He is widely regarded as among the most influential writers of the 20th century...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth13 April 1906
CityFoxrock, Ireland
CountryIreland
trying failing try-again
I try. I fail. I try again. I fail better.
perseverance trying failing
Try again. Fail again. Try better.
beautiful failing
Fail, fail again, fail better.
time language failing
Words fail, there are times when even they fail.
generous thieves
For why be discouraged, one of thieves was saved, that is a generous percentage.
remain
We are all born mad. Some remain so.
silence
Where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on
suffering artistic conditions
Suffering is the main condition of the artistic experience.
writing want ends
I did not want to write, but I had to resign myself to it in the end.
bible athlete writing
I've tried not to exaggerate the glory of athletes. I'd rather, if I could, preserve a sense of proportion, to write about them asexcellent ballplayers, first-rate players. But I'm sure I have contributed to false values--as Stanley Woodward said, "Godding up those ballplayers." The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.
knowledge knowing pessimism
Enough to know no knowing.
play
I cannot explain my plays. Each must find out for himself what is meant
hideous
How hideous is the semicolon.
self literature waste
I have nothing but wastes and wilds of self-translation before me for many miserable months to come.