Brendan Behan Quotes (33 Quotes)

Never throw stones at your mother,You'll be sorry for it when she's dead,Never throw stones at your mother,Throw bricks at your father instead. (The Hostage)

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

He was born an Englishman and remained one for years.

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

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

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

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.

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.

...Actually, I'm a drinker with writing problems.

Critics are like eunuchs in a harem. They're there every night, they see it done every night, they see how it should be done every night, but they can't do it themselves.

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

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

I saw a notice which said, 'Drink Canada Dry' and I've just started.

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.

All publicity is good, except an obituary notice.

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.

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

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

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.

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

It is a good deed to forget a poor joke.

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.

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

I say myself no depressed words just depressed minds.

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

I wish I'd been a mixed infant.

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

I am a drinker with writing problems.

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

I am a daylight atheist.

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