‘I wonder why I speak of all this. Ah yes, to relieve the tedium. Live and cause to live.’ (Malone Dies.)

  ‘All I know is what the words know, and the dead things, and that makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning, a middle and an end as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead’ (Molloy).

  ‘At the same time it is over and it goes on, and is there any tense for that?’ (Molloy)

  ‘I was given a pensum at birth perhaps, as a punishment for having been born’ (Unnamable, Trilogy, p.310.)

  ‘And even my sense of identity was wrapped in a namelessness often hard to penetrate [...]. Yes, even then, when already all was fading, waves and particles, there could be no things but nameless things, no names but thingless names. I say that now, but after all what do I know about then, now when the icy words hail down on me, the icy meanings, and the world dies too, foully named. All I know is what the words know.’ (Ibid); ’There is no indicting words, they are shoddier than what they peddle.’ (Ibid).

‘[P]erhaps 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.’ (Ibid.)

  ‘... the words fail, the voice fails, so be it, I know that well, it will be the silence, full of murmurs, distant cries, the usual silence, spent listening, spent waiting, waiting for the voice’ (Unnamable, Trilogy, p.413.)

  ‘[T]he voice of us all’ (How It Is).

’The expression that there is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, together with the obligation to express’ (Three Dialogues, p.103.)

  ‘The Smeraldina-Rima surveyed the nice young man who was going to take her out. He was stretched on the settee.
 “Out!” she loosed a piercing cackle “so sielist Du aus!”
  Indeed what with his slugging-a-bed in the morning and soaks with the Mandarin in the evening and in in the afternoon his absorption in a Vasari he had found in his host’s library and the latest pictures hanging on his host’s wall and the ineffectual darts he was liable to make at the piano at any hour of the day or night and his objection to going out to be frozen to death when there was nothing to prevent him from hatching a great thought over the stove, he was only able, in the week that elapsed between his arrival and Silvester, three times to promenade her, and two of these times Mammy, whose Spreegeist infuriated the Madonna beyond measure, came with. The Madonna was displeased, this was not the treatment she was used to. So the only evening they spent alone together was marred by a copious tiff with tears to follow.’

  ‘Miss Dew went away without saying goodbye. She had not left home more gladly than she now returned sadly. It was often the way. She trundled along towards Victoria Gate, Nelly gliding before her, and felt the worse for her outing. Her lettuce turned down, her mortification, her pet and herself in her pet insulted, the threepence gone that she had earmarked for a glass of mild. She passed by the dahlias and the dogs’ cemetery, out into the sudden grey glare of Bayswater Road. She caught up Nelly in her arms and carried her a greater part of the way to Paddington than was necessary. A boot was waiting for her from Lord Gall, a boot formerly in the wardrobe of his father. She would sit down with Nelly in her lap, one hand on the boot, the other on the board, and wrest from the ether some good reason for the protector, who was also the reversioner unfortunately, to cut off the cruel entail.
  Miss Dew’s control, a panpygoptotic Manichee of the fourth century, Lena by name, severe of deportment and pallid of feature, who had entertained Jerome on his way through Rome ftom Calchis to Bethlehem, had not, according to her own account, been raised so wholly a spiritual body as yet to sit down with much more comfort than she had in the natural. But she declared that every century brought a marked improvement and urged Miss Dew to be of good courage. In a thousand years she might look forward to having thighs like anyone else, and not merely thighs, but thighs celestial.
 Miss Dew was no ordinary hack medium, her methods were original and eclectic. She might not be able to bring down torrents of ectoplasm or multiply anemones from her armpits, but left undisturbed with one hand on a disaffected boot, the other on the board, Nelly in her lap and Lena coming through, she could make the dead softsoap the quick in seven languages.
  Murphy continued to sit on his heels for some little time, playing with the five pennies, speculating on Miss Dew, speculating on the sheep with whom he felt in close sympathy, deprecating this prejudice and that, arraigning his love of Celia. In vain. The freedom of indifference, the indifference of freedom, the will dust in the dust of its object, the act a handful of sand let fall - these were some of the shapes he had sighted, sunset landfall after many days. But now all was nebulous and dark, a murk of irritation ftom which no spark could be excogitated. He therefore went to the other extreme, disconnected his mind from the gross importunities of sensation and reflection and composed himself on the hollow of his back for the torpor he had been craving to enter for the.past five hours.’

‘A sudden wish, I have a sudden wish to see, as sometimesin the old days, something, anything, no matter what, somethingI could not have imagined. There was, the old butler too, in LondonI think, there’s London again, I cut his throat with hisrazor, that makes five. It seems to me he had a name. Yes, whatI need now is a touch of the unimaginable, coloured for preference,that would do me good. For this may well be my last journey, downthe long familiar galleries, with my little guns and moons thatI hang aloft and my pockets full of, pebbles to stand for menand their seasons, my last, if I’m lucky. Then back here,to me, whatever that means,, and no more leaving me, no more askingme for what I haven’t got. Or perhaps we’ll all comeback, reunited, done with parting, done with prying on one another,back to this foul little den all dirty white. and vaulted, asthough hollowed out of ivory, an old rotten tooth. Or alone. backalone, as alone as when I went, but I doubt it, I can hear themfrom here, clamouring after me down the corridors, stumbling throughthe rubble, beseeching me to take them with me. That settles that.I have just time, if I have calculated right, and if I have calculatedwrong so much the better, I ask nothing better, besides I haven’tcalculated anything, don’t ask anything either, just timeto go and take a little turn, come back here and do all I haveto do, I forgot what, ah yes, put my possessions in order, andthen something else, I forget what, but it will come back to mewhen the titne comes. But before I go I should like to find a, hole in the wall behind which so much goes on.’

‘Alone, alone, the others are gone, they have been stilled,their voices stilled, their listening stilled, one by one at eachnew-coming, another will come, I won’t be the last, I’llbe with the others, I’ll be as gone, in the silence, it won’tbe I, it’s not I, I’m not there yet, I’ll go therenow, I’ll try and go there now, no use trying, I wait formy turn, my turn to go there, my turn to talk there, my turn tolisten there, my turn to wait there for my turn to go, to be asgone, it’s unending, it will be unending, gone where, wheredo you go from there, you must go somewhere else, wait somewhereelse, for yo ur turn to go again, and so on, a whole people, orI alone, and come back, and begin again, no, go on, Go on again,it’s a circuit, a long circuit, I know it well, I must knowit well, it’s a lie, I can’t stir, I haven’t stirred,I launch the voice, I hear a voice, there is nowhere but here,there are not two places, there are not two prisons, it’smy parlour, it’s a parlour, where I wait for, nothing, Idon’t know where it is, I don’t know what it’slike, that’s no business of mine, I don’t know if it’sbig, or if it’s small, or if, it’s closed, if it’sopen, that’s right, reiterate. That helps you on, open onwhat, there is nothing else, only it. Open on the void, open onthe nothing. I’ve no objection, those are words, open onthe silence, looking out on the silence, straight out, why not,all this time on the brink of silence. I knew it, on a rock, lashedto a rock, in the midst of silence, its great swell rears towardsme, I’m streaming with it, it’s an image, those arewords, it’s a body, it’s not I, I knew it wouldn’tbe I, I’m not outside, I’m inside, In in something,Im shut up, the silence is outside, outside, inside, there isnothing but here, and the silence outside, nothing but this voiceand the silence all round, no need of walls, yes, we must havewalls, I need walls, good and thick, I need a prison I was right,for me alone, I’ll go there now, I’ll put me in it,I’m there already, I’ll start looking for me now, I’mthere somewhere, it won’t be I, no matter, I’ll sayit’s I, perhaps it will be I, perhaps that’s all they’rewaiting for, there they are again, to give me quittance, waitingfor me to say I’m someone, to say I’m somewhere, toput me out, into the silence, I see nothing, it’s becausethere is nothig, or it’s because I have no eyes, or both,that makes three possibilities, to choose from, but do I really see nothing.’

‘you are there somewhere alive somewhere vast stretchof time then it’s over you are there no more alive no morethen again you are there again alive again it wasn’t overan error you begin again all over more or less in the same placeor in another as when another image above in the light you cometo in hospital in the dark

the same as which which place it’s not said or I don’thear it’s one or the other the same more or less more humidfewer gleams no gleam what does that mean that I was once somewherewhere there were gleams I say it as I hear it every word always

more hurmid fewer gleams no gleam and hushed the dear sounds pretext for speculation I must have slipped you are m the depths it’sthe end you have ceased you slip you continue

another age yet another familiar in spite of its strangenesses this sack this slime the mild air the black dark the coloured images the power to crawl all these strangenesses

but progress properly so called ruins in prospect as in the dear tenth century the dear twentieth that you might say to yourself to a dream greenhorn ah if you had seen it four hundred years ago what upheavals’

‘No trace anywhere of life, you say, pah, no difficultythere, imagination not dead yet, yes, dead, good, imaginationdead imagine. Islands, waters, azure, verdure, one glimpse and vanished, endlessly, omit. Till all white in the whiteness therotunda. No way in, go in, measure. Diameter three feet, threefeet from ground to summit of the vault. Two diameters at rightangles AB CD divide the white ground into two semicircles ACBBDA. Lying on the ground two white bodies, each in its semicircle.White too the vault and the round wall eighteen inches high fromwhich it springs. Go back out, a plain rotunda, all white in thewhiteness, go back in, rap, solid throughout, a ring as mi the imagination the ring of bone.’

‘Traces blurs light grey almost white on white. Handshanging palins front white feet heels together right angle. Lightheat white planes shining white bare white body fixed ping fixedelsewhere. Traces blurs signs no meaning light grey almost white.Bare white body fixed white on white invisible. Only the eyesonly just light blue almost white. Head haught eyes light bluealmost white silence within. Brief murmurs only just almost neverall known. Traces blurs signs no meaning light grey almost white.Legs joined like sewn heels together right angle. Traces aloneunover given black light grey almost white on white. […]Murmur only just almost never one second perhaps not alone. Givenrose only just bare white body fixed one yard white on white invisible.All white all known murmurs only just almost never always the same all known.’

‘Abode where lost bodies roam each searching for its lostone. Vast enough for search to be in vain. Narrow enough for flightto be in vain. Inside a flattened cylinder fifty metres roundand sixteen high for the sake of harmony. The light. Its dimness.Its yellowness. Its omnipresence as though every separate squarecentimetre were agleam of the some twelve million of total surface.Its restlessness at long intervals suddenly stilled like pantingat the last. Then all go dead still. It is perhaps the end oftheir abode. A few seconds and all begins again. Consequencesof this light for the searching eye. Consequences for the eyewhich having ceased to search is fastened to the ground or raisedto the distant ceiling where none can be. The temperature. Itoscillates with more measured beat between hot and cold. It passesfrom one extreme to the other in about four seconds. It too has its moments of stillness more or less hot or cold. They coincidewith those of the light. Then all go dead still. It is perhapsthe end of all. A few seconds and all begmis again. Consequencesof this climate for the skin. It shrivels. The bodies brush togetherwith a rustle of dry leaves. The mucous membrane itself is affected.A kiss makes an indescribable sound. Those with stomach stillto copulate strive in vain. But they will not give in. Floor andwall are of solid rubber or suchlike. Dash against them foot or fist or head and the sound is scarcely heard.’

‘For to end yet again skull alone in a dark placepent bowed on a board to begin. Long thus to begin till the placefades followed by the board long after. For to end yet again skullalone in the dark the void no neck no face just the box last placeof all in the dark the void. Place of remains where once usedto gleam in the dark on and off used to glimmer a remain. Remainsof the days of the light of day never light so faint as theirsso pale. Thus then the skull makes to glimmer again in lieu ofgoing out. There in the end all at once or by degrees there dawnsand magic lingers a leaden dawn. By degrees less dark till finalgrey or all at once as if switched on grey sand as far as eyecan see beneath grey cloudless sky same grey. Skull last placeof all black void within without till all at once or by degreesthis leaden dawn at last checked no sooner dawned. Grey cloudlesssky grey sand as far as eye can see long desert to begin. Sandpale as dust ah but dust indeed deep to engulf the haughtiestmonuments which too it once was here and there. There in the endsame grey invisible to any other eye stark erect amidst his ruins the expelled.’

 ‘On. Say on. Be said on. Somehow on. Till nohowon. Said nohow on.
 Say for be said. Missaid. From now say for be missaid.
 Say a body. Where none. No mind. Where none. That at least.A place. Where none. For the body. To be Mi. Move in. Out of Backinto. No. No out. No back. Only in. Stay in. On in. Still.
 All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’