Krapp: Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn't want them back.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- The speaker regrets past happiness but refuses to return to it due to current suffering.
- In plain terms
- I lost my best years but do not want them back.
- What can you take from it?
- Current pain changes how we view past happiness.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Would you trade pain for lost joy?
- Does suffering define you?
Another view
It romanticizes suffering as necessary for growth.
More from Samuel Beckett
Hamm: What's he doing? (CLOV raises lid of NAGG's bin, stoops, looks into it. Pause.) Clov: He's crying. (He closes lid, straightens up) Hamm: Then he's living.
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