Brendan Behan

"To write well, you must first live well."

"The greatest tragedy is a wasted life."

"I never believed in the death penalty until I met myself."

"The world belongs to those who claim it."

"Kindness is the only language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see."

"I have been a drunk and I have been happy; sometimes both at the same time."

"The future is made by those who show up for it."

"To love someone is to see a miracle invisible to the rest of the world."

"I would rather have written the truth and lived poor than to have lived rich with lies."

"I'm a daydrink man - I don't have time to wait until evening."

"You're a queer fella. And so's me father."

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

"An Anglo-Saxon conquest for the Irish would be a picnic."

"I am a drinker with writing problems."

"There's no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary."

"I'd like to have been a fly on the wall during that conversation."

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

"Prison was a good experience for a writer - you learn about human nature there."

"God is good - but he gives all the easy jobs to the devil."

"I've never heard of an intellectual yet who hasn't got a political side."

"A man is only as old as the woman he feels."

"I am just a wee Dublin gurrier who's been around a bit."

"Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him."

"You're putting the cart before the horse - or the Dáil before the Dubliners."

"An author's first duty is to let trade take its own course."

"I only drink on two occasions - when it's my birthday, and when it isn't."

"The problem with retirement is that you never get a day off."

"I wish I had as many friends as I have acquaintances."

"Hell's bells and buckets of blood - that's the Dublin way of expressing surprise."

"A pint of plain is your only man."