Brendan Behan
Full Name: Brendan Francis Behan
Birthdate: February 9, 1923
Birthplace: Dublin, Ireland
Date of Death: March 20, 1964
Occupation: Author, Playwright, and Poet
Profile: Best known for
The Hostage.
Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Behan
Number of Quotes: 55
A man is already halfway in love with any woman who listens to him.
A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority.
Ah, bless you, Sister, may all your sons be bishops.
All publicity is good, except an obituary notice.
Reflecting his dark humor about fame.
An author's first duty is to let down his country.
At the innermost core of all loneliness is a deep and powerful yearning for union with one's lost self.
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.
On artistic criticism.
Death always seems to get a man at the wrong time.
Drink is the curse of the land. It makes you fight with your neighbour. It makes you shoot at your landlord — and it makes you miss him.
Typical Behan irony on Irish drinking culture.
Every man, through fear, mugs his aspirations a dozen times a day.
Fame is failure disguised as money.
Fuck the Pope.
Provocative line from The Hostage (1958), critiquing institutional hypocrisy.
God forgive
us—but most of us grew up to be the sort of men our mothers warned us against.
He was born an Englishman and remained one for years.
On Winston Churchill, in Brendan Behan's Island (1962).
I am a daylight atheist.
I am a drinker with writing problems.
I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the
beer stronger, the food cheaper, and old men and women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.
Confessions of an Irish Rebel (1965).
I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn't make it worse.
I only drink on two occasions - when I'm thirsty and when I'm not.
I only write when I'm drunk.
Self-deprecating remark about his creative process.
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.
I say myself no depressed words just depressed minds.
I was court-martialled in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.
I wish I'd been a mixed infant.
If it was raining soup, the Irish would go out with forks.
If you accept your limitations you go beyond them.
If you greatly desire something, have the guts to stake everything on obtaining it.
If you were to be hanged for it, they said, be hanged for a sheep.
Borstal Boy (1958).
Inspirations never go in for long engagements; they demand immediate marriage to action.
Ireland sober is Ireland stiff.
On national identity and drinking.
It is a good deed to forget a poor joke.
It's not that the Irish are cynical. It's rather that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody.
The Scarperer (1964).
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.
Most writers write for money. I write for spite.
On his motivations.
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.
No man can discover his own talents.
No yesterdays are ever wasted for those who give themselves to today.
One drink is too many for me and a thousand not enough.
On his alcoholism.
Other people have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis.
People who say manual labour is a good thing have never done any.
Shakespeare said pretty well everything and what
he left out, James Joyce, with a judge from meself, put in.
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.
The big difference between sex for money and sex for free is that sex for money usually costs a lot less.
Darkly humorous take on relationships.
The English have invented hypocrisy as their only contribution to the arts.
The Hostage.
The most important things to do in the world are to get something to eat, something to drink, and somebody to love you.
Reflecting his working-class ethos.
The prisoner's first duty is to escape.
Borstal Boy.
The prospect of success in achieving our most cherished dream is not without its
terrors. Who is more deprived and alone than the man who has achieved his dream?
The terrorist is the one with the small bomb.
There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.
Variation of his publicity quote.
They took away our land, our language, and our religion; but they could never harness our tongues.
What an author likes to write most is his signature on the back of a cheque.
What the hell difference does it make, left or right? There were good men lost on both sides.
Whatever you hold in contempt is your jailer.
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.
On his IRA experiences.
You can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning.
Famously misattributed to others; originally Behan's.
Last on Earth
