Irish Wit,
Writer,
Lush,
Revolutionist,
Tyrants Foe...
Some quotes and epigrams:
I am a drinker with writing problems.
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.
If it was raining soup, the Irish would go out with forks.
This one is like a polish joke, but for the sake of completeness...
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.
The most important things to do in the world are to get something to eat, something to drink and somebody to love you.
There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own
obituary.
When I came back to Dublin I was court-martialed in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence,
so I said they could shoot me in my absence.
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..
It's not that the
Irish are
cynical. It's rather that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody.
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.
I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn't make it worse.
a personal favorite
Brendan Behan told the story of how he got a job in London with a street repair gang. The first job he went to they were down in a hole singing Happy Birthday around the foreman. "Is it the foreman's birthday?" asked Brendan.
"
No, Brendan. It's the third anniversary of the hole."