Brendan Behan Quotes & Sayings

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

Brendan Behan

#2. 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.

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

#15. No man can discover his own talents.

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

#17. He was born an Englishman and remained one for years.

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

#19. 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

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

#22. It is a good deed to forget a poor joke.

Brendan Behan

#23. 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?

Brendan Behan

#24. You made one mistake. You married me.

Brendan Behan

#25. 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.

Brendan Behan

#26. Most horror movies are certainly that.

Brendan Behan

#27. I am a daylight atheist.

Brendan Behan

#28. 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.

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

#32. I'm a drinker with writing problems.

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

#34. I am a drinker with writing problems.

Brendan Behan

#35. All publicity is good, except an obituary notice.

Brendan Behan

#36. I ruined my health drinking to other people's.

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

#38. 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.

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

#40. Whatever you hold in contempt is your jailer.

Brendan Behan

#41. Every cripple has his own way of walking.

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

#44. The terrorist is the one with the small bomb.

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

#51. I wish I'd been a mixed infant.

Brendan Behan

#52. Message? What the hell do you think I am, a bloody postman?

Brendan Behan

#53. Pound notes are the best religion in the world.

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

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

Brendan Behan

#61. I'm a drinker with a writing problem.

Brendan Behan

#62. 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.

Brendan Behan