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
And all these questions I ask myself. It is not in a spirit of curiosity. I cannot be silent. About myself I need know nothing. Here all is clear. No, all is not clear. But the discourse must go on. So one invents obscurities. Rhetoric.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the struggle of self-understanding and the complexities of communication.
In this quote, Samuel Beckett delves into the nature of introspection and the human experience of grappling with uncertainty. He expresses a paradox where the desire for self-knowledge clashes with the realization that clarity is elusive. The 'discourse' he alludes to represents the ceaseless effort to communicate and comprehend one's thoughts and emotions, even when they are shrouded in ambiguity and rhetorical embellishments.
Themes
Self-ExaminationUncertaintyCommunicationIntrospectionRhetoric
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophy class discussing the nature of existence.
More from Samuel Beckett
All quotes →Nothing 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
The world is agreed that labor is the source from which human wants are mainly supplied. There is no dispute upon this point.
Abraham LincolnRead
We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
Either an ordered Universe or a medley heaped together mechanically but still an order; or can order subsist in you and disorder in the Whole! And that, too, when all things are so distinguished and yet intermingled and sympathetic.
Marcus AureliusRead
True progress lies in the direction of decentralization, both territorial and functional, in the development of the spirit of local and personal initiative, and of free federation from the simple to the compound, in lieu of the present hierarchy from the centre to the periphery.
Peter KropotkinRead
You are right in speaking of the moral foundations of science, but you cannot turn around and speak of the scientific foundations of morality.
Albert EinsteinRead
Who are we, if not measured by our impact on others?
Carl SaganRead