Brendan Behan (1923–64,) fully Brendan Francis Aidan Behan, was an Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, and playwright who wrote in both English and Irish. Distinguished for his earthy satire and authoritative political commentary, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest Irish writers of all time.
Born in Dublin, Behan was infamous for his riotous lifestyle. He left school at 14 to become a house painter, and soon joined the Irish Republican Army (IRA.) In 1939, he was sentenced to three years in a borstal youth prison for attempting to destroy a Liverpool shipyard and, soon after his release, was given 14 years by a Dublin military court for the attempted murder of two detectives. He was freed by a general amnesty in 1946, but was in prison again in Manchester in 1947 and was deported in 1952.
In prison, Behan took it upon himself to learn to speak Irish from fellow IRA detainees and read voraciously. His first play, The Quare Fellow (1954; movie, 1962,) baldly embellished the prison atmosphere before a hanging. His high-spirited Irish wit, enlivened with balladry and bawdry and a talent for fanciful caricature, found scope in his next play, The Hostage (1958, first produced in Irish as An Giall.) This style was also manifest in the autobiographical novel, Borstal Boy (1958,) and in Brendan Behan’s Island (1963.)
Behan wrote for radio, published poems in Irish, and short stories in English. An alcoholic from childhood, Behan he prematurely in a diabetic coma in a Dublin hospital.
Behan’s brother, the songwriter Dominic Behan, wrote the biography My Brother Brendan (1965.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Brendan Behan
Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Acceptance
A man is fortunate if he encounters living examples of vice, as well as of virtue, to inspire him.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Mistakes, Failures, Role models
Scream at God if that’s the only thing that will get results.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Prayer
A man is already halfway in love with any woman who listens to him.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Listening
Failure at a task may be the result of having tackled it at the wrong time.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Failures, Mistakes
There’s no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.
—Brendan Behan
Inspirations never go in for long engagements; they demand immediate marriage to action.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Action, Procrastination, Inaction, Getting Going
The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Problem-solving, Problems
Most people perform essentially meaningless work. When they retire that truth is borne upon them.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Retirement
One drink is too many for me and a thousand not enough.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Alcoholism, Alcohol
When I came back to Dublin I was court marshaled in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Absence
All publicity is good, except an obituary notice.
—Brendan Behan
God forgive us—but most of us grew up to be the sort of men our mothers warned us against.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Motherhood
No yesterdays are ever wasted for those who give themselves to today.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Moving on, Past and Present, Reflection, Live-now
No man can discover his own talents.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Talent
If you greatly desire something, have the guts to stake everything on obtaining it.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Desire
Nothing hurts more than the friendly letter that one never got around to writing.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Friendship
If you have a talent, use it in every which way possible. Don’t hoard it. Don’t dole it out like a miser. Spend it lavishly like a millionaire intent on going broke.
—Brendan Behan
At the innermost core of all loneliness is a deep and powerful yearning for union with one’s lost self.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Loneliness
People who ask our advice almost never take it. Yet we should never refuse to give it, upon request, for it often helps us to see our own way more clearly
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Advice
A baseball park is the one place where a man’s wife doesn’t mind his getting excited over somebody else’s curves
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Baseball
Other people’s interruptions of your work are relatively insignificant compared with the countless times you interrupt yourself.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Focus, Concentration
True, you can’t take it with you, but then, that’s not the place where it comes in handy.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Death
Some persons are very decisive when it comes to avoiding decisions.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Decision, Decisions
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?
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Success & Failure, Success, Accomplishment, Success is not everything
Men will always delight in a woman whose voice is lined with velvet.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Women
Every man, through fear, mugs his aspirations a dozen times a day.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Anxiety, The Future, Tomorrow, Fear, Aspirations
I am a daylight atheist.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Atheism
Many of our fears are tissue-paper-thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Courage, Fear, Anxiety
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