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

Ryan John ed. Early works
Beckett's earliest works are generally considered to have been strongly influenced by the work of his friend James Joyce. Nohow On: Company Ill Seen Ill Said Worstward Ho.

Strongly influenced by James Joyce he is considered one of the last modernists. He was elected Saoi of Aosdána in 1984.