Samuel Beckett's Story

One day in 1937, Beckett was out walking with some friends when a panhandler attacked and stabbed him. A young piano student named Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil came to his aid and phoned for an ambulance. It was the start of a lifelong romance and eventual marriage. After he recovered from the stabbing, he visited the attacker in prison. Beckett asked the man why he had decided to attack him; the man said simply, “I don’t know.” Beckett was deeply influenced by the conversation, and began to realize how much of life is just a random series of events.
-Writer's Almanac