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Flann OBrien Quotes - Page 2

Moderation, we find, is an extremely difficult thing to get in this country.

Moderation, we find, is an extremely difficult thing to get in this country.

Flann O'Brien
Country, Moderation, Difficult
Flann O’Brien (2016). “Best of Myles (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)”, p.24, HarperCollins UK

He went home one evening and drank three cups of tea with three lumps of sugar in each cup, cut his jugular with a razor three times and scrawled on a photograph of his wife with his dying hand goodbye, goodbye, goodbye

Flann O'Brien
Goodbye, Suicidal, Home
"Myles before Myles: a selection of the earlier writings of Brian O'Nolan".

The only result my father got for his money was the certainty that his son had laid faultlessly the foundation of a system of heavy drinking and could be always relied upon to make a break of at least twenty-five even with a bad cue.

Flann O'Brien
Father, Drinking, Son

Hell goes round and round. In shape it is circular, and by nature it is interminable, repetitive, and nearly unbearable.

Flann O'Brien
Shapes, Unbearable, Hell
Flann O'Brien (2007). “The Complete Novels”, Everyman's Library

I suppose we all have our recollections of our earlier holidays, all bristling with horror.

Flann O'Brien
Humorous, Holiday, Horror
Flann O'Brien (1985). “Myles away from Dublin: being a selection from the column written for The Nationalist and Leinster times, Carlow, under the name of George Knowall”, Grafton

My father...was a man who understood all dogs thoroughly and treated them like human beings.

Flann O'Brien
Dog, Father, Men
"The Third Policeman". Book by Flann O'Brien, 1967.

Why be a dumb dud? Do your friends shun you? Do people cross the street when they see you approaching? Do they run up the steps of strange houses, pretend they live there and force their way into the hall while you are passing by? If this is the sort of person you are, you must avail yourself today of this new service. Otherwise, you might as well be dead.

Flann O'Brien
Running, Passing By, People

Questions are like the knocks of beggarmen, and should not be minded.

Flann O'Brien
Should
Flann O'Brien (1996). “The Third Policeman: A Novel”

After a time," said old Mathers disregarding me, "I mercifully perceived the errors of my ways and the unhappy destination I would reach unless I mended them. I retired from the world in order to try to comprehend it and to find out why it becomes more unsavoury as the years accumulate on a man's body. What do you think I discovered at the end of my meditations?" I felt pleased again. He was now questioning me. "What?" "That No is a better word than Yes," he replied.

Flann O'Brien
Men, Thinking, Errors
Flann O’Brien (2010). “The Third Policeman (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)”, p.37, HarperCollins UK

still loved but deprived of grace

Flann O'Brien
Grace, Stills, Deprived

Having placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutes' chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression. I reflected on the subject of my spare-time literary activities. One Beginning and one ending for a book was a thing I did not agree with. A good book may have three openings entirely dissimilar and inter-related only in the prescience of the author, or for that matter one hundred times as many endings.

Flann O'Brien
Book, Eye, Expression
Flann O'Brien (2000). “At Swim-two-birds”, p.5, Penguin UK

Could Henry Ford produce the Book of Kells? Certainly not. He would quarrel initially with the advisability of such a project and then prove it was impossible.

Flann O'Brien
Book, Impossible, Produce
Flann O'Brien (1985). “Myles away from Dublin: being a selection from the column written for The Nationalist and Leinster times, Carlow, under the name of George Knowall”, Grafton

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