Brendan Behan

"When I came back to Dublin, I was courtmartialled in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence."

"He was born an Englishman and remained one for years."

"An author's first duty is to let down his country."

"There's no bad publicity except an obituary."

"The sun was in mind to come out but having a look at the weather it was in lost heart and went back again."

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

"Mother, they would praise my balls if I hung them high enough."

"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 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 only drink on two occasions — When I am thirsty and when I'm not."

"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."

"Brendan described himself as a drinker with a writing problem, but what he really was a painter with a writing problem. No matter in what country of the globe he resided, or how many luminaries he met, the would always be a painter in his soul. If he had remained one for his livelihood, he could still be alive today."

"Brendan lit a bonfire under the arse of Irish literature. He took it by the scruff of the neck and dragged it kicking and screaming into the 20th century."

"If the English hoard words like misers, the Irish spend them like sailors; and Brendan Behan … sends language out on a swaggering spree, ribald, flushed, and spoiling for a fight."

"[Brendan Behan was] too young to die, but too drunk to live."