Brendan Behan Quotes
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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.
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If it was raining soup, the Irish would go out with forks.
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As regards drink, I can only say that in Dublin during the Depression when I was growing up, drunkenness was not regarded as a social disgrace. To get enough to eat was regarded as an achievement. To get drunk was a victory.
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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.
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What an author likes to write most is his signature on the back of a cheque.
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An author's first duty is to let down his country.
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At the innermost core of all loneliness is a deep and powerful yearning for union with one's lost self.
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It's not that the Irish are cynical. It's rather that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody.
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If you greatly desire something, have the guts to stake everything on obtaining it.
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All publicity is good, except an obituary notice.
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I am a drinker with writing problems.
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The sun was in mind to come out but having a look at the weather it was in lost heart and went back again.
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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.
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There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.
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I was court-martialled in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.
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A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority.
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Mother, they would praise my balls if I hung them high enough.
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If you accept your limitations you go beyond them.
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I am a daylight atheist.
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No yesterdays are ever wasted for those who give themselves to today.
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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.
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A man is already halfway in love with any woman who listens to him.
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I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn't make it worse.
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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.