"Samuel Beckett Talks About Beckett" https://archive.vogue.com/article/1969/12/nobel-prize-winner-1969-samuel-beckett-talks-about-beckett, Vogue Magazine, 1969
Source: Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
“Every word has consequences. Every silence, too.”
To the Earl of Manchester, as quoted in the notes to Hudibras (1674), Part 1, Canto 1, by Samuel Butler, edited by Henry George Bohn, (1859)
“You are in my silences like a poet in search of words, like a sound in time with my heart.”
Original: Sei nei miei silenzi come un poeta in cerca di parole, come un suono a tempo col mio cuore.
Source: prevale.net
“Behind the word is silence, behind that silence is forgetfulness.”
Empire of Dreams (prose poetry, 1988)
“I swear, there is in me no wizardry of word.
I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree.”
Przysięgam, nie ma we mnie czarodziejstwa słów.
Mówię do ciebie milcząc, jak obłok czy drzewo.
"Dedication" (1945); quoted in Conversant Essays : Contemporary Poets on Poetry (1990) edited by James McCorkle, p. 69
Alexis (1929)
Context: Every silence is composed of nothing but unspoken words. Perhaps that is why I became a musician. Someone had to express this silence, make it render up all the sadness it contained, make it sing as it were. Someone had to use not words, which are always too precise not to be cruel, but simply music.
The Sound of Silence
Song lyrics, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. (1964)
