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<cite class="play">Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead</cite> Ben quotes 2020-07-11T15:32:14+00:00 /quotes/rosencrantz-and-guildenstern-are-dead/
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You dont understand the humiliation of it—to be tricked out of the single assumption which makes our existence viable—that somebody is watching

Player

Guil

The truth is, we value your company, for want of any other. We have been left so much to our own devices—after a while one welcomes the uncertainty of being left to other peoples.

Player

Uncertainty is the normal state. Youre nobody special.

Guil

But for Gods sake what are we supposed to do!

Player

Relax. Respond. Thats what people do. You cant go through life questioning your situation at every turn.

[Death is] just a man failing to reappear, thats all—now you see him, now you dont thats the only thing thats real: here one minute and gone the next and never coming back—an exit, unobtrusive and unannounced, a disappearance gathering weight as it goes on, until, finally, it is heavy with death.

Guildenstern

Ros

We might as well be dead. Do you think death could possibly be a boat?

Guil

No, no, no…Death is…not. Death isnt. You take my meaning. Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You cant not-be on a boat.

Ros

Ive frequently not been on boats.

Guil

No, no, no—what youve been is not on boats.

Ros

But whats the point?

Guil

Dont apply logic.

Ros

Hes done nothing to us.

Guil

Or justice.

Ros

Its awful.

(Quietly) Where we went wrong was getting on a boat. We can move, of course, change direction, rattle about, but our movement is contained within a larger one that carries us along as inexorably as the wind and current…

Guildenstern