A Quote by Michael Craig-Martin

When I was a very young student I loved and admired the work of Sam Beckett, who is famously pessimistic, and whose writing is an extraordinary examination of emptiness. I wanted to be like Beckett. I don't have the same attitude toward the world, I'm naturally optimistic, and so of course I could never be like Beckett. You can't force yourself to become like someone you admire.

Michael Craig-Martin

Quote Topics

Admire Admired Attitude Beckett Become Could Course Emptiness Examination Extraordinary Force Like Loved Naturally Never Optimistic Pessimistic Sam Same Someone Student Toward Very Wanted Whose Work World Writing Young Yourself

Quote Author

Michael Craig-Martin
Irish - Artist
Born: August 28, 1941

He [Samuel Beckett] is great, a very great writer. Any modern writer is bound to be influenced by [James] Joyce. Of course, by Beckett as well.

William S. Burroughs

The writers we tend to universally admire, like Beckett, or Kafka, or TS Eliot, are not very prolific.

John Updike

Opens up a whole new view of Beckett. The strong mutual attraction between Beckett and Cunard may help explain the leftist political views he expressed both in these superb and long-neglected translations for Negro and elsewhere in his work.

Barney Rosset

I've played Beckett. I put on in the 1950s the first Australian production of 'Waiting for Godot.' I played Estragon. The most interesting conversation I've had about Beckett was with a Dublin taxi driver.

Barry Humphries

My son is actually named after Beck, the musician. We heard Beck on the radio and thought that was a good nickname for a child. We named our son Beckett so we could call him Beck - we reverse engineered. And then after he was born and I saw the name on the birth certificate I realized Beckett was a really pretentious name, way too literary. Luckily he's grown into it. We nearly named my second son Dashiell. Can you imagine? Beckett and Dashiell. It would have been a disaster of pretentiousness.

Lauren Groff

At Princeton I wrote my junior paper on Virginia Woolf, and for my senior thesis I wrote on Samuel Beckett. I wrote some about "Between the Acts" and "Mrs. Dalloway'' but mostly about "To the Lighthouse." With Beckett I focused, perversely, on his novels, "Molloy," "Malone Dies," and "The Unnamable." That's when I decided I should never write again.

David Duchovny

My favourite writer is Beckett and I keep going back to wallow in his work like a deep pool of dark humour or like an oxygen tank when you can't breath in a world consumed by piety, hypocrisy and self-satisfaction.

Simon Critchley

Artemis: "Right, brothers. Onward. Imagine yourself seated at a cafe in Montmartre." Myles: "In Paris." Artemis: "Yes, Paris. And try as you will, you cannot attract the waiter's attention. What do you do?" Beckett: "Umm...tell Butler to jump-jump-jump on his head?" Myles: "I agree with simple-toon." Artemis: "No! You simply raise one finger and say clearly 'ici, garcon.'" Beckett: "Itchy what?

Eoin Colfer

Discovering Samuel Beckett in college was a big deal for me. I realized you could be very funny and very dark at the same time.

Billy Collins

Look at Sam Beckett. Most depressed man who ever lived, but he sure was funny.

T. C. Boyle

I admire [Samuel] Beckett, but I am totally against him. He seeks no improvement.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Samuel Beckett is the person that I read the most of - certainly the person whose books I own the most of. Probably 800 or 900, maybe 1,000 books of just Samuel Beckett. By him, about him, in different languages, etc. etc. Notebooks of his, letters of his that I own, personal letters - not to me, but I bought a bunch of correspondence of his. I love his humor, and I'm always blown away by his syntax and his ideas. So I keep reading those.

John Larroquette

The one living playwright I admire without any reservation whatsoever is Samuel Beckett. I have funny feelings about almost all the others.

Edward Albee

I don't think there's been any writer like Samuel Beckett. He's unique. He was a most charming man and I used to send him my plays.

Harold Pinter

We grew up on Harold Pinter, Sam Shepard, Samuel Beckett. You're making something about men on the verge of a nervous breakdown, you're going to look to those guys.