Dream of Fair to Middling Women (1932)
  ‘The Smeraldina-Rima surveyed the nice young man who was going to take her out. He was stretched on the settee.
“Out!” she loosed a piercing cackle “so sielist Du aus!”
  Indeed what with his slugging-a-bed in the morning and soaks with the Mandarin in the evening and in in the afternoon his absorption in a Vasari he had found in his host’s library and the latest pictures hanging on his host’s wall and the ineffectual darts he was liable to make at the piano at any hour of the day or night and his objection to going out to be frozen to death when there was nothing to prevent him from hatching a great thought over the stove, he was only able, in the week that elapsed between his arrival and Silvester, three times to promenade her, and two of these times Mammy, whose Spreegeist infuriated the Madonna beyond measure, came with. The Madonna was displeased, this was not the treatment she was used to. So the only evening they spent alone together was marred by a copious tiff with tears to follow.

Murphy (1938)
  ‘Miss Dew went away without saying goodbye. She had not left home more gladly than she now returned sadly. It was often the way. She trundled along towards Victoria Gate, Nelly gliding before her, and felt the worse for her outing. Her lettuce turned down, her mortification, her pet and herself in her pet insulted, the threepence gone that she had earmarked for a glass of mild. She passed by the dahlias and the dogs’ cemetery, out into the sudden grey glare of Bayswater Road. She caught up Nelly in her arms and carried her a greater part of the way to Paddington than was necessary. A boot was waiting for her from Lord Gall, a boot formerly in the wardrobe of his father. She would sit down with Nelly in her lap, one hand on the boot, the other on the board, and wrest from the ether some good reason for the protector, who was also the reversioner unfortunately, to cut off the cruel entail.
  Miss Dew’s control, a panpygoptotic Manichee of the fourth century, Lena by name, severe of deportment and pallid of feature, who had entertained Jerome on his way through Rome ftom Calchis to Bethlehem, had not, according to her own account, been raised so wholly a spiritual body as yet to sit down with much more comfort than she had in the natural. But she declared that every century brought a marked improvement and urged Miss Dew to be of good courage. In a thousand years she might look forward to having thighs like anyone else, and not merely thighs, but thighs celestial.
 Miss Dew was no ordinary hack medium, her methods were original and eclectic. She might not be able to bring down torrents of ectoplasm or multiply anemones from her armpits, but left undisturbed with one hand on a disaffected boot, the other on the board, Nelly in her lap and Lena coming through, she could make the dead softsoap the quick in seven languages.
  Murphy continued to sit on his heels for some little time, playing with the five pennies, speculating on Miss Dew, speculating on the sheep with whom he felt in close sympathy, deprecating this prejudice and that, arraigning his love of Celia. In vain. The freedom of indifference, the indifference of freedom, the will dust in the dust of its object, the act a handful of sand let fall - these were some of the shapes he had sighted, sunset landfall after many days. But now all was nebulous and dark, a murk of irritation ftom which no spark could be excogitated. He therefore went to the other extreme, disconnected his mind from the gross importunities of sensation and reflection and composed himself on the hollow of his back for the torpor he had been craving to enter for the.past five hours.’

Malone Dies (1953)
‘A sudden wish, I have a sudden wish to see, as sometimes in the old days, something, anything, no matter what, something I could not have imagined. There was, the old butler too, in London I think, there’s London again, I cut his throat with his razor, that makes five. It seems to me he had a name. Yes, what I need now is a touch of the unimaginable, coloured for preference, that would do me good. For this may well be my last journey, down the long familiar galleries, with my little guns and moons that I hang aloft and my pockets full of, pebbles to stand for men and their seasons, my last, if I’m lucky. Then back here, to me, whatever that means,, and no more leaving me, no more asking me for what I haven’t got. Or perhaps we’ll all come back, reunited, done with parting, done with prying on one another, back to this foul little den all dirty white. and vaulted, as though hollowed out of ivory, an old rotten tooth. Or alone. back alone, as alone as when I went, but I doubt it, I can hear them from here, clamouring after me down the corridors, stumbling through the rubble, beseeching me to take them with me. That settles that. I have just time, if I have calculated right, and if I have calculated wrong so much the better, I ask nothing better, besides I haven’t calculated anything, don’t ask anything either, just time to go and take a little turn, come back here and do all I have to do, I forgot what, ah yes, put my possessions in order, and then something else, I forget what, but it will come back to me when the titne comes. But before I go I should like to find a, hole in the wall behind which so much goes on.’

The Unnamable (1955)
‘Alone, alone, the others are gone, they have been stilled, their voices stilled, their listening stilled, one by one at each new-coming, another will come, I won’t be the last, I’ll be with the others, I’ll be as gone, in the silence, it won’t be I, it’s not I, I’m not there yet, I’ll go there now, I’ll try and go there now, no use trying, I wait for my turn, my turn to go there, my turn to talk there, my turn to listen there, my turn to wait there for my turn to go, to be as gone, it’s unending, it will be unending, gone where, where do you go from there, you must go somewhere else, wait somewhere else, for yo ur turn to go again, and so on, a whole people, or I alone, and come back, and begin again, no, go on, Go on again, it’s a circuit, a long circuit, I know it well, I must know it well, it’s a lie, I can’t stir, I haven’t stirred, I launch the voice, I hear a voice, there is nowhere but here, there are not two places, there are not two prisons, it’s my parlour, it’s a parlour, where I wait for, nothing, I don’t know where it is, I don’t know what it’s like, that’s no business of mine, I don’t know if it’s big, or if it’s small, or if, it’s closed, if it’s open, that’s right, reiterate. That helps you on, open on what, there is nothing else, only it. Open on the void, open on the nothing. I’ve no objection, those are words, open on the silence, looking out on the silence, straight out, why not, all this time on the brink of silence. I knew it, on a rock, lashed to a rock, in the midst of silence, its great swell rears towards me, Iin streaming with it, it’s an image, those are words, it’s a body, it’s not I, I knew it wouldn’t be I, Iin not outside, Iin inside, Iin in something, Iim shut up, the silence is outside, outside, inside, there is nothing but here, and the silence outside, nothing but this voice and the silence all round, no need of walls, yes, we must have walls, I need walls, good and thick, I need a prison I was right, for me alone, I’ll go there now, I’ll put me in it, Iin there already, I’ll start looking for me now, Iin there somewhere, it won’t be I, no matter, I’ll say it’s I, perhaps it will be I, perhaps that’s all they’re waiting for, there they are again, to give me quittance, waiting for me to say Iin someone, to say I’m somewhere, to put me out, into the silence, I see nothing, it’s because there is nothig, or it’s because I have no eyes, or both, that makes three possibilities, to choose from, but do I really see nothing.’

you are there somewhere alive somewhere vast stretch of time then it’s over you are there no more alive no more then again you are there again alive again it wasn’t over an error you begin again all over more or less in the same place or in another as when another image above in the light you come to in hospital in the dark

the same as which which place it’s not said or I don’t hear it’s one or the other the same more or less more humid fewer gleams no gleam what does that mean that I was once somewhere where there were gleams I say it as I hear it every word always

more hurmid fewer gleams no gleam and hushed the dear sounds pretext for speculation I must have slipped you are m the depths it’s the end you have ceased you slip you continue

another age yet another familiar in spite of its strangenesses this sack this slime the mild air the black dark the coloured images the power to crawl all these strangenesses

but progress properly so called ruins in prospect as in the dear tenth century the dear twentieth that you might say to yourself to a dream greenhorn ah if you had seen it four hundred years ago what upheavals

Imagination Dead Imagine (1966)
‘No trace anywhere of life, you say, pah, no difficulty there, imagination not dead yet, yes, dead, good, imagination dead imagine. Islands, waters, azure, verdure, one glimpse and vanished, endlessly, omit. Till all white in the whiteness the rotunda. No way in, go in, measure. Diameter three feet, three feet from ground to summit of the vault. Two diameters at right angles AB CD divide the white ground into two semicircles ACB BDA. Lying on the ground two white bodies, each in its semicircle. White too the vault and the round wall eighteen inches high from which it springs. Go back out, a plain rotunda, all white in the whiteness, go back in, rap, solid throughout, a ring as mi the imagination the ring of bone.’

Ping (1966)
‘Traces blurs light grey almost white on white. Hands hanging palins front white feet heels together right angle. Light heat white planes shining white bare white body fixed ping fixed elsewhere. Traces blurs signs no meaning light grey almost white. Bare white body fixed white on white invisible. Only the eyes only just light blue almost white. Head haught eyes light blue almost white silence within. Brief murmurs only just almost never all known. Traces blurs signs no meaning light grey almost white. Legs joined like sewn heels together right angle. Traces alone unover given black light grey almost white on white. […] Murmur only just almost never one second perhaps not alone. Given rose only just bare white body fixed one yard white on white invisible. All white all known murmurs only just almost never always the same all known.’

The Lost Ones (1969)
‘Abode where lost bodies roarn each searching for its lost one. Vast enough for search to be in vain. Narrow enough for flight to be in vain. Inside a flattened cylinder fifty metres round and sixteen high for the sake of harmony. The light. Its dimness. Its yellowness. Its omnipresence as though every separate square centimetre were agleam of the some twelve million of total surface. Its restlessness at long intervals suddenly stilled like panting at the last. Then all go dead still. It is perhaps the end of their abode. A few seconds and all begins again. Consequences of this light for the searching eye. Consequences for the eye which having ceased to search is fastened to the ground or raised to the distant ceiling where none can be. The temperature. It oscillates with more measured beat between hot and cold. It passes from one extreme to the other in about four seconds. It too has its moments of stillness more or less hot or cold. They coincide with those of the light. Then all go dead still. It is perhaps the end of all. A few seconds and all begmis again. Consequences of this climate for the skin. It shrivels. The bodies brush together with a rustle of dry leaves. The mucous membrane itself is affected. A kiss makes an indescribable sound. Those with stomach still to copulate strive in vain. But they will not give in. Floor and wall are of solid rubber or suchlike. Dash against them foot or fist or head and the sound is scarcely heard.’

For To End Yet Again (1976
‘For to end yet again skull alone in a dark place pent bowed on a board to begin. Long thus to begin till the place fades followed by the board long after. For to end yet again skull alone in the dark the void no neck no face just the box last place of all in the dark the void. Place of remains where once used to gleam in the dark on and off used to glimmer a remain. Remains of the days of the light of day never light so faint as theirs so pale. Thus then the skull makes to glimmer again in lieu of going out. There in the end all at once or by degrees there dawns and magic lingers a leaden dawn. By degrees less dark till final grey or all at once as if switched on grey sand as far as eye can see beneath grey cloudless sky same grey. Skull last place of all black void within without till all at once or by degrees this leaden dawn at last checked no sooner dawned. Grey cloudless sky grey sand as far as eye can see long desert to begin. Sand pale as dust ah but dust indeed deep to engulf the haughtiest monuments which too it once was here and there. There in the end same grey invisible to any other eye stark erect amidst his ruins the expelled.’

Worstward Ho (1983)
 ‘On. Say on. Be said on. Somehow on. Till nohow on. Said nohow on.
 Say for be said. Missaid. From now say for be missaid.
 Say a body. Where none. No mind. Where none. That at least. A place. Where none. For the body. To be Mi. Move in. Out of Back into. No. No out. No back. Only in. Stay in. On in. Still.
 All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’

‘Well, thought Belacqua, it’s a quick death, God help us all./It is not’ (“Dante and the Lobster” in More Pricks Than Kicks).

‘I wonder why I speak of all this. Ah yes, to relieve the tedium. Live and cause to live.’ (Malone Dies.)

‘Let me say before I go any further that I forgive nobody. I wish them all an atrocious life and then the fires and ice of hell and in the execrable generations to come an honoured name.’ (Given as epigraph, Edna O’Brien, Mother Ireland, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1976.

‘All I know is what the words know, and the dead things, and that makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning, a middle and an end as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead’ (Molloy).

‘For in me there have always been two fools, among others, one asking nothing better than to stay where he is and the other imagining that life might be slightly less horrible further on’ (Molloy).

‘At the same time it is over and it goes on, and is there any tense for that?’ (Molloy)

‘The more things resist me the more rabid I get. With time, and nothing but my teeth and nails, I would rage up from the bowels of the earth to its crust, knowing full well I had nothing to gain. And when I had no more teeth, no more nails, I would dig through the rock with my bones’ (Molloy, Trilogy, p.156.)

‘I was given a pensum at birth perhaps, as a punishment for having been born’ (Unnamable, Trilogy, p.310.)

‘No, one can spend one’s life thus, unable to live, unable to bring to life, and die in vain, having done nothing, been nothing’ (Unnamable, p.358.)

‘And even my sense of identity was wrapped in a namelessness often hard to penetrate [...]. Yes, even then, when already all was fading, waves and particles, there could be no things but nameless things, no names but thingless names. I say that now, but after all what do I know about then, now when the icy words hail down on me, the icy meanings, and the world dies too, foully named. All I know is what the words know.’ (Ibid); ‘There is no indicting words, they are shoddier than what they peddle.’ (Ibid).

‘I said again I thought it was hopeless and no good going on and she agreed’ (Krapp’s Last Tape).

‘[P]erhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn’t want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn’t want them back.’ (Ibid.)

‘These things I say, and shall say, if I can, are no longer, or are not yet, or never were, or never will be, or if they were, if they are, if they will be, were not here, are not here, but elsewhere.’ (The Unnamable, ibid., p.303).

‘... the words fail, the voice fails, so be it, I know that well, it will be the silence, full of murmurs, distant cries, the usual silence, spent listening, spent waiting, waiting for the voice’ (Unnamable, Trilogy, p.413.)

‘You must go on, no I can’t go on, I’ll go on’ (Unnamable, Trilogy, p.414.)

‘[T]he voice of us all’ (How It Is).

‘Birth was the death of him’ (Monologue).

‘The expression that there is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, together with the obligation to express’ (Three Dialogues, p.103.)

The following list was compiled by Matt Bell under the heading ‘My Grading Scale for the Fall Semester, composed entirely of Samuel Beckett Quotes’ - in “Timothy McSweeney Sublets his Intellectual Property” (31 Aug. 2012).

There is a little of everything, apparently, in nature, and freaks are common. Yes, there were times when I forgot not only who I was but that I was, forgot to be. Nothing matters but the writing. Each must find out for himself what is meant. It means what it says. I cannot imagine a higher goal for today’s writer. What is that unforgettable line? If I do not love you I shall not love. [Molloy, NY: Grove Press 1955), Pt. I, p.17.]

The earth makes a sound as of sighs. To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now. Not to want to say, not to know what you want to say, not to be able to say what you think you want to say, and never to stop saying, or hardly ever, that is the thing to keep in mind, even in the heat of composition. The absurdity of those things, on the one hand, and the necessity of those others, on the other. You must say words, as long as there are any. Be reasonable, you haven’t yet tried everything. Any fool can turn a blind eye but who knows what the ostrich sees in the sand.

We wait. We are bored. Confusion amounting to nothing. Despite precautions. The confusion is not my invention. You must not think of certain things, of those that are dear to you, or rather you must think of them, for if you don’t there is the danger of finding them, in your mind, little by little. A disturbance into words, a pillow of old words. All life long, the same questions, the same answers. The churn of stale words in the heart again. The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. This tired abstract anger; inarticulate passive opposition. I pushed and pulled in vain, the wheels would not turn. How hideous is the semicolon.

It’s so nice to know where you’re going, in the early stages. It almost rids you of the wish to go there. There is man in his entirety, blaming his shoe when his foot is guilty. Don’t wait to be hunted to hide. What a joy to know where one is, and where one will stay, without being there. You wiser but not sadder, and I sadder but not wiser. I don’t understand how it can be endured.

Your mind, never active at anytime, is now even less than ever so. All I heard was a kind of rattle, unintelligible even to me who knew what was intended. I can’t go on, I’ll go on: You invent nothing, you think you are inventing, you think you are escaping, and all you do is stammer out your lesson. To every man his little cross. Till he dies. And is forgotten.

Nothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes. It’s awful. So all things limp together for the only possible. In the immense confusion one thing alone is clear. I forgive nobody. Nothing to do but stretch out comfortably on the rack, in the blissful knowledge you are nobody for eternity. All I say cancels out, I’ll have said nothing. Words are all we have. Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness. To restore silence is the role.

Yes, the words I heard, and heard distinctly, having quite a sensitive ear, were heard a first time, then a second, and often even a third, as pure sounds, free of all meaning, and this is probably one of the reasons why conversation was unspeakably painful to me. And the words I uttered myself, and which must nearly always have gone with an effort of the intelligence, were often to me as the buzzing of an insect. And this is perhaps one of the reasons I was so untalkative, I mean this trouble I had in understanding not only what others said to me, but also what I said to them. It is true that in the end, by dint of patience, we made ourselves understood, but understood with regard to what, I ask of you, and to what purpose? And to the noises of nature too, and of the works of men, I reacted I think in my own way and without desire of enlightenment. (Beckett, Three Novels, trans. Patrick Bowles & Samuel Beckett, NY: Grove/Atlantic, 2009, p.45)

To say I stumbled in impenetrable darkness, no, I cannot. I stumbled, but the darkness was not impenetrable. For there reigned a kind of blue gloom, more than sufficient for my visual needs. I was astonished this gloom was not green, rather than blue, but I saw it blue and perhaps it was. The red of the sun, mingling with the green of the leaves, gave a blue result, that is how I reasoned. But from time to time. From time to time. What tenderness in these little words, what savagery. But from time to time I came on a kind of cross-roads, you know, a star, or circus, of the kind to be found in even the most unexplored of forests. (Beckett, Three Novels, p.77)