Brendan behan quotes

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

He was born an Englishman and remained one for years.

Critics are like eunuchs; they can tell you what to do, but they can't do it themselves!

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

Whatever you hold in contempt is your jailer.

No man can discover his own talents.

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

I am a drinker with writing problems.

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

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

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.

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

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

Pound notes are the best religion in the world.

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

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

I am a daylight atheist.

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

I wish I'd been a mixed infant.

I ruined my health drinking to other people's.

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

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.

It is a good deed to forget a poor joke

You made one mistake. You married me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you accept your limitations you go beyond them.

Every cripple has his own way of walking.

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

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

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

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

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

There's no bad publicity except an obituary.

Other people's interruptions of your work are relatively insignificant compared with the countless times you interrupt yourself.

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

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

All publicity is good, except an obituary notice.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

The terrorist is the one with the small bomb.

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

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

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.

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

I'm a drinker with a writing problem.

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

Most horror movies are certainly that.

I cannot imagine any crime worse than taking a life, can you? -It'd depend whose life.

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

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

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.

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

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