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About this quote

What does it mean?
The speaker lists three struggles in life: not speaking, not being silent, and being alone.
In plain terms
My life has been a mix of not speaking, not silence, and being alone.
What can you take from it?
Struggling with speech and silence in solitude is a common fate.

Where it applies

  • social anxiety
  • writer's block
  • loneliness

Putting it to work

  • finding voice
  • embracing solitude
  • therapy

Questions to consider

  • How do you handle solitude?
  • What silences you most?

Another view

Silence can be a gift rather than a burden.

More from Samuel Beckett

  1. 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 e…

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  2. 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:

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

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