Samuel Beckett Quotes

I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.

Without ego I don't know how identity works, I don't know... I need to sit down and re-read some philosophy or something.

My thought is me: that's why I can't stop. I exist because I think… and I can't stop myself from thinking. At this very moment - it's frightful - if I exist, it is because I am horrified at existing. I am the one who pulls myself from the nothingness to which I aspire.

Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here? What is this thing called the world?

In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I don't know what I am. I don't know if I am or not.

The problem is we think we exist.

I secretly think reality exists so we can speculate about it.

The very act of questioning whether you exist proves you do, because you must be there for the doubt to be entertained in the first place.

Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.

To live is to think.

I dream, therefore I exist.

In this universe, and this existence, where we live with this duality of whether we exist or not and who are we, the stories we tell ourselves are the stories that define the potentialities of our existence. We are the stories we tell ourselves.

I am, therefore I'll think.

Whether it's my age or my misspent youth, sometimes I forget whether I've worked with somebody or not.

I suppose identity depends on memory. And if my memory is blotted out, then I wonder if I exist - I mean, if I am the same person. Of course, I don't have to solve that problem. It's up to God, if any.

I find that when I do not think of myself I do not think at all.

I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then

You’re here,” I continued. “At least you look as if you’re here. But maybe you aren’t. Maybe it’s just your shadow. The real you may be someplace else. Or maybe you already disappeared, a long, long time ago. I reach out my hand to see, but you’ve hidden yourself behind a cloud of probablys. Do you think we can go on like this forever?

Sometimes I think, sometimes I am .

I'm the idea of the human imagination, which, when you think about it, is the only thing we can really be certain ISN'T imaginary.

I think that when you remember, remember, remember everything like that, you could go on until you remember what was there before you were in the world.

I don't remember lighting this cigarette and I don't remember if I'm here alone or waiting for someone.

I tell myself that I know you, and then when I think about it, I realize that I don't.

Consciousness is either inexplicable illusion, or else revelation.

When you really understand that you are what you see and know, you do not run around the countryside thinking, "I am all this!" There is simply all this.