Brendan Behan Quotes

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

He was born an Englishman and remained one for years.

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

That you, sister. May you be the mother of a bishop.

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

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

All publicity is good, except an obituary notice.

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

In my childhood I could remember the whole week a damn sight better than I can now for all my family were in the Rising. And they told the stories to such good effect that I was in there with them… Now I have learned enough arithmetic to know that I could not possibly have taken part in an event which happened seven years before I was born, and it saddens me.

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

Every man, through fear, mugs his aspirations a dozen times a day.

What an author likes to write most is his signature on the back of a cheque.

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

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.

I'm a drinker with a writing problem.

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

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

A pedestrian ought to be legally allowed to toss at least one hand grenade at a motorist every day.

I respect kindness in human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don't respect the law; 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.

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

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

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

The terrorist is the one with the small bomb.

You made one mistake. You married me.

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

The sun was in mind to come out but having a look at the weather it was in lost heart and went back again.

A man is fortunate if he encounters living examples of vice, as well as of virtue, to inspire him.

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

I saw a sign that said 'Drink Canada Dry'. So I did.

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.

If you greatly desire something, have the guts to stake everything on obtaining it.

I wish I'd been a mixed infant.

There's no bad publicity except an obituary.

I am a drinker with writing problems.

The prospect of success in achieving our most cherished dream is not without its terrors. Who is more deprived and alone than the man who has achieved his dream?

It is a good deed to forget a poor joke.

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

A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority.

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

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 a queer world, God knows, but the best we have to be going on with.

In a society which really supported marriage the wife would be encouraged to go to the office and make love to her husband on the company's time and with its blessing.

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

Every cripple has his own way of walking.

I never felt so much at home as I do in New York. I must be a devil.

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

A general and a bit of shooting makes you forget your troubles ... it takes your mind off the cost of living.

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