Brendan Behan Quotes

New York is my Lourdes, where I go for spiritual refreshment... a place where you're least likely to be bitten by a wild goat.

The most important things to do in the world are to get something to eat, something to drink and somebody to love you.

It's not that the Irish are cynical. It's rather that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody.

I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn't make it worse.

I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.

They took away our land, our language, and our religion; but they could never harness our tongues.

The terrorist is the one with the small bomb.

I only take a drink on two occasions - when I'm thirsty and when I'm not.

I was court-martialled in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.

Other people have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis.

The only thing I envy in young people is their livers.

The English and Americans dislike only some Irish--the same Irish that the Irish themselves detest, Irish writers--the ones that think.

Ah, bless you, Sister, may all your sons be bishops.

An author's first duty is to let down his country.

There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.

Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.

I am a drinker with writing problems.

I'm a Communist by day and a Catholic as soon as it gets dark.

One drink is to many for me and a thousand not enough.

Nothing hurts more than the friendly letter that one never got around to writing.

The big difference between sex for money and sex for free is that sex for money usually costs a lot less.

Whatever you hold in contempt is your jailer.

Every cripple has his own way of walking.

I am married to Beatrice Salkeld, a painter. We have no children, except me.

Shakespeare said pretty well everything and what he left out, James Joyce, with a judge from meself, put in.

I saw a notice that said "Drink Canada Dry" and I've just started.

Failure at a task may be the result of having tackled it at the wrong time.

Other people's interruptions of your work are relatively insignificant compared with the countless times you interrupt yourself.

Many a man has decided to stay alive not because of the will to live but because of the determination not to give assorted surviving bastards the satisfaction of his death.

I think weddings are sadder than funerals, because they remind you of your own wedding. You can't be reminded of your own funeral because it hasn't happened. But weddings always make me cry.

Most horror movies are certainly that.

I am a daylight atheist.

To get enough to eat was regarded as an achievement. To get drunk was a victory.

The Bible was a consolation to a fellow alone in the old cell. The lovely thin paper with a bit of matress stuffing in it, if you could get a match, was as good a smoke as I ever tasted.

No man can discover his own talents.

Message? What the hell do you think I am, a bloody postman?

It is a good deed to forget a poor joke

All publicity is good, except an obituary notice.

There's no bad publicity except an obituary.

I cannot imagine any crime worse than taking a life, can you? -It'd depend whose life.

When two men fight over a woman it's the fight they want, not the woman.

He was born an Englishman and remained one for years.

Scream at God if that's the only thing that will get results.

Prostitutes, more than any other profession, help keep American marriages together.

If you accept your limitations you go beyond them.

If it was raining soup, the Irish would go out with forks.

Critics are like eunuchs; they can tell you what to do, but they can't do it themselves!

There is no human situation so miserable that it cannot be made worse by the presence of a policeman.

There's no one, no one, loves you like yourself.

I wish I'd been a mixed infant.