Brendan Behan > Quotes

“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.”
― Brendan Behan

“I'm a drinker with writing problems.”
― Brendan Behan

“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

“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, Brendan Behan, Interviews and Recollections Volume 1

“They took away our land, our language, and our religion; but they could never harness our tongues...”
― Brendan Behan

“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.”
― Brendan Behan

“I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn't make it worse.”
― Brendan Behan

“At the innermost core of all loneliness is a deep and powerful yearning for union with one's lost self.”
― Brendan Francis

“Every cripple has his own way of walking. ”
― Brendan Behan

“I saw a sign that said 'Drink Canada Dry'. So I did.”
― Brendan Behan, The Complete Plays: The Hostage / The Quare Fellow / Richard's Cork Leg / Moving Out / A Garden Party / The Big House

“I only drink on two occasions—when I'm thirsty and when I'm not.”
― Brendan Behan

“Ah, bless you, Sister, may all your sons be bishops.”
― Brendan Behan

“There is no such thing as bad publicity...except your own obituary”
― Brendan Behan

“Every man, through fear, mugs his aspirations a dozen times a day.”
― Brendan Francis Behan

“It's a queer world, God knows, but the best we have to be going on with.”
― Brendan Behan, Borstal Boy

“A man is already halfway in love with any woman who listens to him.”
― Brendan Francis

“The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it.”
― Brendan Francis

“No yesterdays are ever wasted for those who give themselves today.”
― Brendan Francis

“An author's first duty is to let down his country.”
― Brendan Behan

“I didn’t spend a lifetime studying theology, but I know that the Church was always against Ireland and for the British Empire.”
― Brendan Behan, Borstal Boy

“What's a crook, only a businessman without a shop.”
― Brendan Behan, The Quare Fellow

“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.”
― Brendan Behan

“If I was willing to serve Mass, it was in memory of my ancestors standing around a rock, in a lonely glen, for fear of the landlords and their yeomen, or sneaking through a back-lane in Dublin, and giving the pass-word, to hear Mass in a slum public-house, when a priest’s head was worth five pounds and an Irish Catholic had no existence in law.”
― Brendan Behan, Borstal Boy

“But the best book I ever saw in the nick was the Bible. When I was in Brixton on remand, I ’ad one in the flowery. Smashing thin paper for rolling dog-ends in. I must ’ave smoked my way through the book of Genesis, before I went to court.”
― Brendan Behan, Borstal Boy

“If it was raining soup, the Irish would go out with forks.”
― Brendan Behan

“Liars need good memories, and I have one.”
― Brendan Behan, Borstal Boy

“If you have a talent, use it in every which way possible. Don't hoard it. Don't dole it out like a miser. Spend it lavishly like a millionaire intent on going broke.”
― Brendan Francis Behan

“What an author likes to write most is his signature on the back of a cheque.”
― Brendan Behan

“A good start is half the work.”
― Brendan Behan, Borstal Boy

“People take to hard work as easily as to drink. It’s a matter of getting used to it. It didn’t make them like Tom a”
― Brendan Behan, Borstal Boy