Becket Quotes

“Many are needed to plant and water what has been planted now that the faith has spread so far and there are so many people... No matter who plants or waters, God gives no harvest unless what is planted is the faith of Peter and unless he agrees to his teachings.”

“Remember the sufferings of Christ, the storms that were weathered... the crown that came from those sufferings which gave new radiance to the faith... All saints give testimony to the truth that without real effort, no one ever wins the crown.”

“Who shall resist Anti-Christ when he comes if we show such patience towards the vices and crimes of his precursors? By such leniency, we encourage kings to become tyrants and tempt them to withdraw every privilege and all jurisdiction from the Churches.”

“I have Shakespeared my Moliere to Tenessee, and I am Wild for Becket! But I got a little tired of the redundancy.”

“In a sense, Joyce was Beckett's Don Quixote, and Beckett was his Sancho Panza. Joyce aspired to the One; Beckett encapsulated the fragmented many. But as each author accomplished his task, it was in the service of the other. Ultimately, Beckett's landscapes would resound with articulate silence, and his empty spaces would collect within themselves the richness of multiple shadows--a physicist would say the negative particles--of all that exists in absence, as in the white patches of an Abstract Expressionist painting. Becket would evoke, on his canvasses of vast innuendo and through the interstices of conscious and unconscious thought, the richness that Joyce had made explicit in words and intricate structure.”

“We can talk about our dreams all night, Lisette. We can talk forever, for the rest of our lives, living one adventure after another, I promise. But not now, my darling Lisette. For now, all I can think of is the brilliance of yet another ancient Greek, Sophocles. He said, 'One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life-that word is love.' I love you, Lisette. You bring my life joy I've never known. Please, marry me.”