Quotes from book
The Unnamable

The Unnamable
Samuel Beckett Original title L'Innomable (French, 1953)

The Unnamable is a 1953 novel by Samuel Beckett. It is the third and final entry in Beckett's "Trilogy" of novels, which begins with Molloy followed by Malone Dies. It was originally published in French as L'Innommable and later adapted by the author into English. Grove Press published the English edition in 1958.

Samuel Beckett photo

“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.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

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.

Samuel Beckett photo

“How all becomes clear and simple when one opens an eye on the within, having of course previously exposed it to the without, in order to benefit by the contrast.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)

Samuel Beckett photo

“Bah, the latest news, the latest news is not the last.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)

Samuel Beckett photo

“To go on means going from here, means finding me, losing me, vanishing and beginning again, a stranger first, then little by little the same as always, in another place, where I shall say I have always been, of which I shall know nothing, being incapable of seeing, moving, thinking, speaking, but of which little by little, in spite of these handicaps, I shall begin to know something, just enough for it to turn out to be the same place as always, the same which seems made for me and does not want me, which I seem to want and do not want, take your choice, which spews me out or swallows me up, I’ll never know, which is perhaps merely the inside of my distant skull where once I wandered, now am fixed, lost for tininess, or straining against the walls, with my head, my hands, my feet, my back, and ever murmuring my old stories, my old story, as if it were the first time.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)

Samuel Beckett photo

“I, of whom I know nothing, I know my eyes are open, because of the tears that pour from them unceasingly.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)

Samuel Beckett photo

“What can it matter to me, that I succeed or fail? The undertaking is none of mine, if they want me to succeed I’ll fail, and vice versa, so as not to be rid of my tormentors.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)

Samuel Beckett photo

“Perhaps it's done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)

Samuel Beckett photo

“At no moment do I know what I’m talking about, nor of whom, nor of where, nor how, nor why, but I could employ fifty wretches for this sinister operation and still be short of the fifty-first, to close the circuit, that I know, without knowing what it means.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)

Samuel Beckett photo

“Yes, in my life, since we must call it so, there were three things, the inability to speak, the inability to be silent, and solitude, that’s what I’ve had to make the best of.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)

Samuel Beckett photo

“This place, if I could describe this place, no place around me, there’s no end to me, I don’t know what it is, it isn’t flesh, it doesn’t end, it’s like air…”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)

Samuel Beckett photo

“Ah if only this voice could stop, this meaningless voice which prevents you from being nothing, just barely prevents you from being nothing and nowhere, just enough to keep alight this little yellow flame feebly darting from side to side, panting, as if straining to tear itself from its wick, it should never have been lit, or it should never have been fed, or it should have been put out, put out, it should have been let go out.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)

Samuel Beckett photo

“All this business of a labour to accomplish, before I can end, of words to say, a truth to recover, in order to say it, before I can end, of an imposed task, once known, long neglected, finally forgotten, to perform, before I can be done with speaking, done with listening, I invented it all, in the hope it would console me, help me to go on, allow me to think of myself as somewhere on a road, moving, between a beginning and an end, gaining ground, losing ground, getting lost, but somehow in the long run making headway.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)

Samuel Beckett photo

“These things I say, and shall say, if I can, are no longer, or are not yet, or never were, or never will be, or if they were, if they are, if they will be, were not here, are not here, will not be here, but elsewhere.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)

Samuel Beckett photo

“What makes me weep so? From time to time. There is nothing saddening here.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)
Context: The tears stream down my cheeks from my unblinking eyes. What makes me weep so? From time to time. There is nothing saddening here. Perhaps it is liquefied brain.

Samuel Beckett photo

“I only see what appears close beside me, what I best see I see ill.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)
Context: In order to obtain the optimum view of what takes place in front of me, I should have to lower my eyes a little. But I lower my eyes no more. In a word, I only see what appears close beside me, what I best see I see ill.

Samuel Beckett photo

“What a joy to know where one is, and where one will stay, without being there. Nothing to do but stretch out comfortably on the rack, in the blissful knowledge you are nobody for all eternity.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)
Context: What a joy to know where one is, and where one will stay, without being there. Nothing to do but stretch out comfortably on the rack, in the blissful knowledge you are nobody for all eternity. A pity I should have to give tongue at the same time, it prevents it from bleeding in peace, licking the lips.

Samuel Beckett photo

“What they were most determined for me to swallow was my fellow creatures. In this they were without mercy.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

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.

Samuel Beckett photo

“The essential is to go on squirming forever at the end of the line, as long as there are waters and banks and ravening in heaven a sporting god to plague his creatures, per pro his chosen shits.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)

Similar authors

Samuel Beckett photo
Samuel Beckett 122
Irish novelist, playwright, and poet 1906–1989
W.B. Yeats photo
W.B. Yeats 255
Irish poet and playwright
Seamus Heaney photo
Seamus Heaney 29
Irish poet, playwright, translator, lecturer
James Joyce photo
James Joyce 191
Irish novelist and poet
John Galsworthy photo
John Galsworthy 48
English novelist and playwright
William Golding photo
William Golding 79
British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Lite…
George Bernard Shaw photo
George Bernard Shaw 413
Irish playwright
Doris Lessing photo
Doris Lessing 94
British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer …
Marcel Pagnol photo
Marcel Pagnol 9
novelist, playwright and filmmaker from France
Sinclair Lewis photo
Sinclair Lewis 136
American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright