“Some of this rubbish has come in handy on occasions, I don’t deny it, on occasions which would never have arisen if they had left me in peace. I use it still, to scratch my arse with.”
The Unnamable (1954)
Context: What they were most determined for me to swallow was my fellow creatures. In this they were without mercy. I remember little or nothing of these lectures. I cannot have understood a great deal. But I seem to have retained certain descriptions, in spite of myself. They gave me courses on love, on intelligence, most precious, most precious. They also taught me to count, and even to reason. Some of this rubbish has come in handy on occasions, I don’t deny it, on occasions which would never have arisen if they had left me in peace. I use it still, to scratch my arse with.
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Samuel Beckett 122
Irish novelist, playwright, and poet 1906–1989Related quotes
“I drink when I have occasion, and sometimes when I have no occasion.”
Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 33.
Dr. Wallis's Account of some Passages of his own Life (1696)
From interview with Rajeev Masand
Attributed by an unnamed "distinguished officer of the United States Government" in the Sixth Report of the American Temperance Society, May, 1833, pp. 10-11 http://books.google.com/books?id=h_c0wbAOQ5kC&pg=PA237&dq=%22The+habit+of+using+ardent+spirit%22.
Later variant: Were I to commence my administration again,... the first question I would ask respecting a candidate would be, "Does he use ardent spirits?"
Attributed
Statement of 1651, quoted in Quaker Faith and Practice http://www.quaker.org.uk/qfp/chap24/24.01.html#24.01, Britain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
“I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.”