Brendan Behan > Quotes

“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

“When I came back to Dublin I was courtmartialed in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.”
― Brendan Behan

“I respect kindness in human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don't respect the law; 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

“I'm a drinker with writing problems.”
― Brendan Behan

“Every cripple has his own way of walking. ”
― Brendan Behan

“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, Brendan Behan, Interviews and Recollections

“I am a drinker with writing problems.”
― Brendan Behan

“They took away our land, our language, and our religion; but they could never harness our tongues...”
― Brendan Behan

“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

“I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn't make it worse.”
― Brendan Behan

“I saw a sign that said 'Drink Canada Dry'. So I did.”
― Brendan Behan, The Complete Plays: The Hostage / The Quare Fellow / Richard's Cork Leg / Moving Out / A Garden Party / The Big House

“It's a queer world, God knows, but the best we have to be going on with.”
― Brendan Behan, Borstal Boy

“Every man, through fear, mugs his aspirations a dozen times a day.”
― Brendan Behan

“Ah, bless you, Sister, may all your sons be bishops.”
― Brendan Behan

“Lying in bed, I could hear the trams far away in the distance. Turning the corners heavily, and gathering speed for the hills. I used to hear them back in Dublin on the Northside when I was small, lying in bed, avoiding the eye of the Sacred Heart in the picture on the far wall. The house we lived in was a great lord's town house before it was a tenement, and there was a big black Kilkenny marble fireplace before my bed. If the souls in Purgatory really came back, it was out of there they would come.”
― Brendan Behan, Borstal Boy

“Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how its done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.
”
― Brendan Behan

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

All publicity is good, except an obituary notice.

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