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.”

“If you greatly desire something, have the guts to stake everything on obtaining it.”

“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 say myself no depressed words just depressed minds.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“I'm a drinker with writing problems.”

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

“I am a daylight atheist.”

“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?”

“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.”

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

“No yesterdays are ever wasted for those who give themselves to today.”

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