“The confusion is not my invention. We cannot listen to a conversation for five minutes without being acutely aware of the confusion. It is all around us and our only chance now is to let it in.”

Tom F. Driver, "Beckett by the Madeleine" (1961), Columbia University Forum 4 (Summer 1961): 21-25; it later appeared in Stanley A. Clayes, ed., Drama and Discussion (1967), pp. 604-7, as quoted in "Rick On Theater" 25 January 2018 http://rickontheater.blogspot.com/2018/01/beckett-by-madeleine.html.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 12, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The confusion is not my invention. We cannot listen to a conversation for five minutes without being acutely aware of t…" by Samuel Beckett?
Samuel Beckett photo
Samuel Beckett 122
Irish novelist, playwright, and poet 1906–1989

Related quotes

Friedrich Nietzsche photo
George Bernard Shaw photo

“He who confuses political liberty with freedom and political equality with similarity has never thought for five minutes about either.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

#23
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Henry Miller photo

“Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood.”

Tropic of Capricorn http://books.google.com/books?id=_HAhCxNs-QUC&lpg=PA176&q="Confusion+is+a+word+we+have+invented+for+an+order+which+is+not+understood"&pg=PA176#v=onepage (1939)

“You confuse not speaking with not listening.”

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Girolamo Cardano photo

“What is this complacency then but an ignoring of conditions, a pretense of not being aware of what we know exists, or a will to set aside a fact by force? And so it is with everything else foul, vain, confused and untrue in our lives”

Girolamo Cardano (1501–1576) Italian Renaissance mathematician, physician, astrologer

The Book of My Life (1930)
Context: What if one should address a word to the kings of the earth and say, "Not one of you but eats lice, flies, bugs, worms, fleas—nay the very filth of your servants! With what an attitude would they listen to such statements, though they be truths? What is this complacency then but an ignoring of conditions, a pretense of not being aware of what we know exists, or a will to set aside a fact by force? And so it is with everything else foul, vain, confused and untrue in our lives.

Adlai Stevenson photo

“We must recover the element of quality in our traditional pursuit of equality. We must not, in opening our schools to everyone, confuse the idea that all should have equal chance with the notion that all have equal endowments.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

Speech to the United Parents Association, as quoted in The New York Times (6 April 1958)

Narendra Modi photo

“I never talk about my image, never spent a single minute for my image and confusions may be there[.]”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2007, "Modi walks out of TV interview after being quizzed on riots", 2007
Context: I am busy with my work. I am committed to Gujarat and I am dedicated to Gujarat. I never talk about my image, never spent a single minute for my image and confusions may be there[. ]

Tom Waits photo
Sadhguru photo

Related topics