Brendan Behan

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

All publicity is good, except an obituary notice.

At the innermost core of all loneliness is a deep and powerful yearning for union with ones lost self.

It is a good deed to forget a poor joke.

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 am a drinker with writing problems.

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

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.

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.

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.

I am a daylight atheist.

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.

At the innermost core of all loneliness is a deep and powerful yearning for union with one’s lost self.

I say myself no depressed words just depressed minds.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Whats a crook only a businessman without a shop.

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

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

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