1.
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.
Brendan Behan
2.
The most important things to do in the world are to get something to eat, something to drink and somebody to love you.
Brendan Behan
3.
It's not that the Irish are cynical. It's rather that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody.
Brendan Behan
4.
I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn't make it worse.
Brendan Behan
5.
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.
Brendan Behan
6.
They took away our land, our language, and our religion; but they could never harness our tongues.
Brendan Behan
7.
The terrorist is the one with the small bomb.
Brendan Behan
8.
I only take a drink on two occasions - when I'm thirsty and when I'm not.
Brendan Behan
9.
I was court-martialled in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.
Brendan Behan
10.
Other people have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis.
Brendan Behan
11.
The only thing I envy in young people is their livers.
Brendan Behan
12.
The English and Americans dislike only some Irish--the same Irish that the Irish themselves detest, Irish writers--the ones that think.
Brendan Behan
13.
Ah, bless you, Sister, may all your sons be bishops.
Brendan Behan
14.
An author's first duty is to let down his country.
Brendan Behan
15.
There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.
Brendan Behan
16.
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.
Brendan Behan
17.
I am a drinker with writing problems.
Brendan Behan
18.
I'm a Communist by day and a Catholic as soon as it gets dark.
Brendan Behan
19.
One drink is to many for me and a thousand not enough.
Brendan Behan
20.
Nothing hurts more than the friendly letter that one never got around to writing.
Brendan Behan
21.
The big difference between sex for money and sex for free is that sex for money usually costs a lot less.
Brendan Behan
22.
Whatever you hold in contempt is your jailer.
Brendan Behan
23.
Every cripple has his own way of walking.
Brendan Behan
24.
I am married to Beatrice Salkeld, a painter. We have no children, except me.
Brendan Behan
25.
Shakespeare said pretty well everything and what he left out, James Joyce, with a judge from meself, put in.
Brendan Behan
26.
I saw a notice that said "Drink Canada Dry" and I've just started.
Brendan Behan
27.
Failure at a task may be the result of having tackled it at the wrong time.
Brendan Behan
28.
Other people's interruptions of your work are relatively insignificant compared with the countless times you interrupt yourself.
Brendan Behan
29.
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.
Brendan Behan
30.
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.
Brendan Behan
31.
Most horror movies are certainly that.
Brendan Behan
32.
I am a daylight atheist.
Brendan Behan
33.
To get enough to eat was regarded as an achievement. To get drunk was a victory.
Brendan Behan
34.
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.
Brendan Behan
35.
No man can discover his own talents.
Brendan Behan
36.
Message? What the hell do you think I am, a bloody postman?
Brendan Behan
37.
It is a good deed to forget a poor joke
Brendan Behan
38.
All publicity is good, except an obituary notice.
Brendan Behan
39.
There's no bad publicity except an obituary.
Brendan Behan
40.
I cannot imagine any crime worse than taking a life, can you? -It'd depend whose life.
Brendan Behan
41.
When two men fight over a woman it's the fight they want, not the woman.
Brendan Behan
42.
He was born an Englishman and remained one for years.
Brendan Behan
43.
Scream at God if that's the only thing that will get results.
Brendan Behan
44.
Prostitutes, more than any other profession, help keep American marriages together.
Brendan Behan
45.
If you accept your limitations you go beyond them.
Brendan Behan
46.
If it was raining soup, the Irish would go out with forks.
Brendan Behan
47.
Critics are like eunuchs; they can tell you what to do, but they can't do it themselves!
Brendan Behan
48.
There is no human situation so miserable that it cannot be made worse by the presence of a policeman.
Brendan Behan
49.
There's no one, no one, loves you like yourself.
Brendan Behan
50.
I wish I'd been a mixed infant.
Brendan Behan
