October 26, 2025

Many a man has decided to stay alive not because of the will to live, but because of the determination not to give assorted surviving bastards the satisfaction of his death.

Brendan Behan (1923–1964), Irish writer, The Cynic’s Lexicon, Jonathon Green, ed. (London: 1986), p.78

Do you think he means bastards he himself might have sired, or simply the ones he came across in the course of his career?

As Irishmen go, Behan was quintessential.