Brendan Behan Quotes

67 quotes in 656 categories

• It's not that the Irish are cynical. It's rather that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody.
• The big difference between sex for money and sex for free is that sex for money usually costs a lot less.
• Other people have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis.
• 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…
• 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.
• There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.
• If it was raining soup, the Irish would go out with forks.
• The most important things to do in the world are to get something to eat, something to drink and somebody to love you.
• I am a drinker with writing problems.
• I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn't make it worse.
• Ah, bless you, Sister, may all your sons be bishops.
• I was court-martialled in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.
• All publicity is good, except an obituary notice.
• 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,…
• 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.
• What the hell difference does it make, left or right? There were good men lost on both sides.
• Shakespeare said pretty well everything and what he left out, James Joyce, with a judge from meself, put in.
• I wish I'd been a mixed infant.
• Message? What the hell do you think I am, a bloody postman?
• The terrorist is the one with the small bomb.

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