Flann O'Brien Quotes

• What you think is the point is not the point at all but only the beginning of the sharpness.

  Flann O'Brien

  Thinking, Sharpness

  Flann O'Brien (1996). “The Third Policeman: A Novel”

  66 Copy quote

• The first beginnings of wisdom...is to ask questions but never to answer any.

  Flann O'Brien

  Answers, Firsts, Asks

  Flann O'Brien (2007). “The Complete Novels”, Everyman's Library

  31 Copy quote

• Anybody who has the courage to raise his eyes and look sanely at the awful human condition ... must realize finally that tiny periods of temporary release from intolerable suffering is the most that any individual has the right to expect.

  Flann O'Brien

  Eye, Suffering, Looks

  32 Copy quote

• A wise old owl once lived in a wood, the more he heard the less he said, the less he said the more he heard, let's emulate that wise old bird.

  Flann O'Brien

  Wise, Bird, Owl

  Flann O'Brien (2007). “The Complete Novels”, Everyman's Library

  33 Copy quote

• The gross and net result of it is that people who spend most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people and half bicycles.

  Flann O'Brien

  Iron, Numbers, People

  Flann O'Brien (2007). “The Complete Novels”, Everyman's Library

  28 Copy quote

• When things go wrong and will not come right, Though you do the best you can, When life looks black as the hour of night, A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

  Flann O'Brien

  Night, Men, Black

  Flann O'Brien (2011). “The Various Lives of Keats and Chapman”, p.118, Souvenir Press

  25 Copy quote

• The majority of the members of the Irish parliament are professional politicians, in the sense that otherwise they would not be given jobs minding mice at crossroads.

  Flann O'Brien

  Jobs, Majority, Politician

  Flann O'Brien (1989). “The Hair of the Dogma: A Further Selection from 'Cruiskeen Lawn'”

  26 Copy quote

• Waiting for the German verb is surely the ultimate thrill.

  Flann O'Brien

  Writing, Editing, Waiting

  Flann O'Brien (1989). “The Hair of the Dogma: A Further Selection from 'Cruiskeen Lawn'”

  11 Copy quote

• Past humanity is not only implicit in each new man born but is contained in him. Humanity is an ever-widening spiral and life is the beam that plays briefly on each succeeding ring. All humanity from its beginning to its end is already present but the beam has not yet played beyond you.

  Flann O'Brien

  Past, Men, Play

  Flann O'Brien (2007). “The Complete Novels”, Everyman's Library

  24 Copy quote

• Rome wasn't built in A.D.

  Flann O'Brien

  Rome, Built

  24 Copy quote

• Your talk," I said, "is surely the handiwork of wisdom because not one word of it do I understand.

  Flann O'Brien

  Said, Handiwork, One Word

  Flann O'Brien (2007). “The Complete Novels”, Everyman's Library

  20 Copy quote

• Descartes spent far too much time in bed subject to the persistent hallucination that he was thinking. You are not free from a similar disorder.

  Flann O'Brien

  Thinking, Bed, Too Much

  16 Copy quote

• I am completely half afraid to think.

  Flann O'Brien

  Thinking, Half

  Flann O'Brien (1996). “The Third Policeman: A Novel”

  7 Copy quote

• When a man sleeps, he is steeped and lost in a limp toneless happiness: awake he is restless, tortured by his body and the illusion of existence. Why have men spent the centuries seeking to overcome the awakened body? Put it to sleep, that is a better way. Let it serve only to turn the sleeping soul over, to change the blood-stream and thus make possible a deeper and more refined sleep.

  Flann O'Brien

  Sleep, Men, Blood

  19 Copy quote

• I saw that my witticism was unperceived and quietly replaced it in the treasury of my mind.

  Flann O'Brien

  Mind, Saws, Treasury

  Flann O'Brien (2007). “The Complete Novels”, Everyman's Library

  5 Copy quote

• The continual cracking of your feet on the road makes a certain quantity of road come up into you. When a man dies they say he returns to clay but too much walking fills you up with clay far sooner (or buries bits of you along the road) and brings your death half-way to meet you. It is not easy to know what is the best way to move yourself from one place to another.

  Flann O'Brien

  Moving, Men, Feet

  Flann O'Brien (2007). “The Complete Novels”, Everyman's Library

  12 Copy quote

• It is clear enough that you are making some distinction in what you said, that there is some nicety of terminology in your words. I can't quite follow you.

  Flann O'Brien

  Enough, Said, Distinction

  Flann O'Brien (2007). “The Complete Novels”, Everyman's Library

  14 Copy quote

• When money's tight and is hard to get And your horse has also ran, When all you have is a heap of debt A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

  Flann O'Brien

  Horse, Drinking, Men

  Flann O'Brien (2011). “The Various Lives of Keats and Chapman”, p.118, Souvenir Press

  23 Copy quote

• Another day gone and no jokes.

  Flann O'Brien

  Funny, Humor, Gone

  20 Copy quote

• The dusk was performing its customary intransitive operation of "gathering".

  Flann O'Brien

  Luck, Gathering, Operations

  7 Copy quote

• A woman doesn't care if she hasn't a stomach, provided she looks as if she hasn't.

  Flann O'Brien

  Looks, Care, Stomach

  14 Copy quote

• Strange enlightenments are vouchsafed to those who seek the higher places.

  Flann O'Brien

  Enlightenment, Strange, Higher

  "The Complete Novels".

  17 Copy quote

• Why should anyone steal a watch when he could steal a bicycle?

  Flann O'Brien

  Inspirational, Cycling, Watches

  7 Copy quote

• I mean to say, whether a yarn is tall or small I like to hear it well told. I like to meet a man that can take in hand to tell a story and not make a balls of it while he's at it. I like to know where I am, do you know. Everything has a beginning and an end.

  Flann O'Brien

  Mean, Men, Hands

  6 Copy quote

• Do you know what I am going to tell you, he said with his wry mouth, a pint of plain is your only man. Notwithstanding this eulogy, I soon found that the mass of plain porter bears an unsatisfactory relation to its toxic content and I subsequently became addicted to brown stout in bottle, a drink which still remains the one that I prefer the most despite the painful and blinding fits of vomiting which a plurality of bottles has often induced in me.

  Flann O'Brien

  Men, Eulogy, Toxic

  11 Copy quote

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