VLADIMIR: We could do our exercises. ESTRAGON: Our movements VLADIMIR: Our elevations ESTRAGON: Our relaxations. VLADIMIR: Our elongations. ESTRAGON: Our relaxations. VLADIMIR: To warm us up. ESTRAGON: To cool us down.

Samuel Beckett at his writing desk in Ussy, c.1965. Photograph: Dartmouth College.

it's misery to stay, misery to go.

Calm yourself.

Thank you again for the appalling trouble you’ve been taking to get me out of the rubbish bin. [25.9.46]

What are you musing on, Mercier? On the horror of existence, confusedly, said Mercier. What about a drink? said Camier.

That is what I find so wonderful , that not a day goes by—[smile]—to speak in the old style—[smile off]—hardly a day, without some addition to one's knowledge however trifling, the addition I mean, provided one takes the pains.

that's the mistake I made, one of the mistakes, to have wanted a story for myself, whereas life alone is enough.

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

Anger led me sometimes to slight excesses of language.

You are unwise to leave me your 200. You know I will spend it. [ca.5.8.30]

I felt ill at ease with all this air about me, lost before the confusion of innumerable prospects.

If there is one question I dread, to which I have never been able to invent a satisfactory reply, it is the question what am I doing.

Samuel Beckett in London, 1965. Photograph: Dmitri Kasterine.

There were streets where I remembered none, some I did remember had vanished and others had completely changed their names. The general impression was the same as before, It was true I did not know the city very well. Perhaps it was quite a different one.

beyond this tumult there is a great calm

Is it not yet time for my pain-killer?

here all is strange.

VLADIMIR: Well? Shall we go? ESTRAGON: Yes, let's go. They do not move.

“A man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live.” (Thomas Merton) — Find me at rhystranter.com Subscribe at rhystranter.com/subscribe Reach me at rhystranter.com/contact