Samuel Beckett
13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989
- He worked as James Joyce’s amanuensis – until the two writers fell out
- He was a talented cricketer
- In 1938, he was stabbed on the streets of Paris and nearly died
1. “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”
2. “What do I know of man’s destiny? I could tell you more about radishes.”
3. “You’re on Earth. There’s no cure for that.”
4. “No, I regret nothing, all I regret is having been born, dying is such a long tiresome business I always found.”
5. “We are all born mad. Some remain so.”
6. “Habit is a great deadener.”
7. “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. Yes, yes, it’s the most comical thing in the world.”
8. “The only sin is the sin of being born”
9. “Birth was the death of him.”
10. “Words are all we have.”
11. “Dance first. Think later. It’s the natural order.”
12. “All I know is what the words know, and dead things, and that makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning and a middle and an end, as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead.”
13. “If you do not love me I shall not be loved. If I do not love you I shall not love.”
14. “Nothing is more real than nothing.”
