Brendan Behan Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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

  Love, Life, Important

  Brendan Behan (1968). “The wit of Brendan Behan”

  72 Copy quote

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

  Brendan Behan

  War, Situation, Policemen

  48 Copy quote

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

  Brendan Behan

  Land, Tongue, Language

  43 Copy quote

• 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

  Summer, Beer, Winter

  "Brendan Behan Dies in Dublin", www.nytimes.com. March 21, 1964.

  48 Copy quote

• The terrorist is the one with the small bomb.

  Brendan Behan

  Peace, War, Novelists

  33 Copy quote

• 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

  Respect, Cynical, Ireland And The Irish

  "Brendan Behan, Interviews and Recollections". Book by E. H. Mikhail, Vol. 2 (p. 186), 1982.

  55 Copy quote

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

  Brendan Behan

  People, Envy, Young

  24 Copy quote

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

  Brendan Behan

  Drinking, Two, Alcohol

  26 Copy quote

• Whatever you hold in contempt is your jailer.

  Brendan Behan

  Prison, Contempt, Jailer

  13 Copy quote

• 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

  Funny, Editors, Criticism

  "ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER; Breathing Rarefied Air", www.nytimes.com. May 6, 1990.

  13 Copy quote

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

  Brendan Behan

  Thinking, Irish Writers, Detest

  Brendan Behan (2014). “Behan Complete Plays”, p.280, Bloomsbury Publishing

  21 Copy quote

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

  Brendan Behan

  Children, Married, Painter

  "Happily unblessed" by Rose Shepherd, www.theguardian.com. October 18, 2003.

  11 Copy quote

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

  Brendan Behan

  Umpires, Judging, Said

  9 Copy quote

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

  Brendan Behan

  Friendship, Hurt, Writing

  13 Copy quote

• I was court-martialled in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.

  Brendan Behan

  Life, Dublin, Ireland And The Irish

  The Hostage act 1 (1958)

  24 Copy quote

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

  Brendan Behan

  Dark, Catholic, Communist

  15 Copy quote

• I am a drinker with writing problems.

  Brendan Behan

  Drinking, Writing, Problem

  16 Copy quote

• 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

  Suicide, Determination, Men

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Funny, Spiritual, New York

  81 Copy quote

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

  Brendan Behan

  Country, Firsts, Let Down

  "The Cynic's Lexicon: A Dictionary of Amoral Advice". Book by Jonathon Green, p. 20, 1984.

  19 Copy quote

• Every cripple has his own way of walking.

  Brendan Behan

  Way, Cripples, Walking

  Brendan Behan (2014). “The Hostage”, p.86, Bloomsbury Publishing

  13 Copy quote

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

  Brendan Behan

  Inspirational, Psychosis, People

  Richard's Cork Leg (1961).

  23 Copy quote

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

  Brendan Behan

  Tasks, May, Results

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  Thinking, Funny Marriage, Funeral

  Brendan Behan (2014). “Behan Complete Plays”, p.252, Bloomsbury Publishing

  3 Copy quote

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

  Brendan Behan

  Addiction, Irish Drinking, Enough

  13 Copy quote

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