Brendan Behan quotes:

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  • 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?

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

  • 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.

  • Inspirations never go in for long engagements; they demand immediate marriage to action.

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

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

  • 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.

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

  • 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.

  • Ninety-seven saint days a year wouldn't affect the theater, but two Yom Kippurs would ruin it.

  • What the hell difference does it make, left or right? There were good men lost on both sides.

  • A man is already halfway in love with any woman who listens to him.

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

  • When I came back to Dublin I was courtmartialed in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.

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

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

  • 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.

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

  • I am a drinker with writing problems.

  • At the innermost core of all loneliness is a deep and powerful yearning for union with one's lost self.

  • 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.

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

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

  • If you accept your limitations you go beyond them.

  • I am a daylight atheist.

  • 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.

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

  • God forgive us-but most of us grew up to be the sort of men our mothers warned us against.

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

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

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

  • It is a good deed to forget a poor joke.

  • 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.

  • All publicity is good, except an obituary notice.

  • I say myself no depressed words just depressed minds.

  • The terrorist is the one with the small bomb.

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

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

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

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

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

  • Every cripple has his own way of walking.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Most horror movies are certainly that.

  • Whatever you hold in contempt is your jailer.

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

  • 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.

  • Pound notes are the best religion in the world.

  • You made one mistake. You married me.

  • It is a good deed to forget a poor joke

  • There's no bad publicity except an obituary.

  • 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.

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

  • 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.

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

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

  • When I'm talking to people I like to stop and quote myself. My quotes have a way of spicing up conversation.

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

  • I ruined my health drinking to other people's.

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

  • No man can discover his own talents.

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

  • He was born an Englishman and remained one for years.

  • I wish I'd been a mixed infant.

  • I'm a drinker with a writing problem.

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

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