Brendan Behan's Quotes

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 am a daylight atheist.

I say myself no depressed words just depressed minds.

I wish I'd been a mixed infant.

It is a good deed to forget a poor joke.