"Words are all we have."

So said Samuel Beckett. But he also stated in another place and play, "Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness."

The gentleman whose bust is above adorns the space in the Long Room of Trinity College Dublin, where the Book of Kells resides. His nameplate reads, "Magee."

My brief visit to London and Dublin, in large part to celebrate the publication of "The Letters of Samuel Beckett," was full of the mists and the myths of place, language, and time--and a bit of tea and insomnia.

I am in the midst of preparing for a "Creativity Conversation" with Edward Albee, who derives much of his inspiration from Beckett.