I asked her to look at me and after a few moments - (pause) - after a few moments she did, but the eyes just slits, because of the glare I bent over her to get them in the shadow and they opened. (Pause. Low) Let me in.
Samuel BeckettRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The speaker reflects on lost opportunities for happiness but values their current passion and zeal for life.
In this quote, Samuel Beckett acknowledges a sense of nostalgia for earlier times that seemed filled with potential for happiness. However, he emphasizes that he does not wish to return to those times, as he now possesses a fiery spirit and passion that brings a different kind of fulfillment and joy, suggesting that growth and change have made his present more valuable than his past.
Themes
HappinessNostalgiaPassionGrowthChange
In practice
Example use cases
This quote is perfect for a motivational speech about embracing the present.
More from Samuel Beckett
All quotes βNothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes. It's awful.
Samuel BeckettRead
I shall state silences more competently than ever a better man spangled the butterflies of vertigo.
Samuel BeckettRead
And what I have, what I am, is enough, was always enough for me, and as far as my dear little sweet little future is concerned I have no qualms, I have a good time coming.
Samuel BeckettRead
I love order. It's my dream. A world where all would be silent and still, and each thing in its last place, under the last dust.
Samuel BeckettRead
We lose our hair, our teeth! Our bloom, our ideals.
Samuel BeckettRead
Similar quotes
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Satiety depends not at all on how much we eat, but on how we eat. It's the same with happiness, the very same...happiness doesn't depend on how many external blessings we have snatched from life. It depends only on our attitude toward them. There's a saying about it in the Taoist ethic: 'Whoever is capable of contentment will always be satisfied.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynRead
A journal, is a book that shall contain a record of all your joy, your ecstasy, what you are grateful for.
Henry David ThoreauRead
Joy is the sweet voice, joy the luminous cloud. We in ourselves rejoice! And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight, all melodies the echoes of that voice, all colours a suffusion from that light.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeRead
I wish I had thrown out the bathroom scale at age 16. Weighing yourself every morning is like waking up and asking Dick Cheney to validate your sense of inner worth.
Anne LamottRead