Chapter 5: Samuel Beckett
It was long since I had longed for anything and the effect on me was horrible.
“A bright light is not necessary,
a taper is all one needs to live in strangeness,
if it faithfully burns.”
- Samuel Beckett
April 13 stands as a remarkable day in literary history. Two Nobel Prize Laureates—Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney—were born on this same calendar day, albeit in different years.
Beckett's work, while perhaps not conventionally enjoyable, offers a refined essence of melancholy that powerfully captures human suffering. His writing penetrates the depths of existential despair with uncompromising precision and haunting beauty.
Beckett with his stark minimalism and Heaney with his earthy lyricism—makes April 13 a particularly significant date for appreciating the diverse brilliance of Irish literature and its global impact.
Here are some of my favorite quotes from Beckett, I'll recite these quotes even after the worst nightmare.
“Dance first, think later. That's the natural order.”
"You're on earth. There is no cure for that.”
“Don't look for meaning in the words. Listen to the silences.”
“Nothing happens,
No one comes,
No one goes,
It's awful.”
“Words are all we have.”
“But what matter whether I was born or not, have lived or not, am dead or merely dying, I shall go on doing as I have always done, not knowing what it is I do, nor who I am, nor where I am, nor if I am.”
“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.”
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”
“We are all born mad. Some remain so.”
Samuel Beckett directing "Endgame" at the Riverside Studios, London, 1980. Source
Beckett’s work is filled with hidden gems of existential comedy, truth, awful silence, raw emotions of human conditions as a series of plays. There's something profoundly moving about how he transforms the bleakest aspects of existence into art that resonates so deeply.
Beckett's economy of language—those "heavy hitting lines" in short books—demonstrates how much emotional weight can be carried by carefully chosen words. His minimalism serves as a counterpoint to the vastness of the existential questions he poses.
Every time, I read his work or a quote, it brings a downpour of emotions and time and work pauses in my world. His ability to craft "existential comedy" alongside "awful silence" creates that distinctive tension that makes his work so affecting.
He writes like a Nihilist and never lets you be the one by the end. His unflinching gaze at human misery paradoxically offers a kind of companionship in darkness.
Here is the interview of him after winning the Nobel Prize.
The famous dialogue from Waiting for Godot
Estragon: “Let’s go”
Vladimir: “We can’t”
Estragon: “Why not?”
Vladimir: “We’re waiting for Godot”
Estragon: (despairingly) “Agh!”
I'll end the piece with a nostalgic, evergreen, beautifull painful quote from Krapp’s last tape.
“Perhaps 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.”