J.P. Donleavy Quotes

When I die, I want to decompose in a barrel of porter and have it served in all the pubs in Dublin. I wonder would they know it was me?

On Being Old. It's not nice but take comfort that you won't stay that way for ever.

Writing is turning one's worst moments into money.

I'm starved for love. Not ordinary love but real love. The love that's like music or something.

Dear Mr Skully, I have caught my neck in a mangle and will be indisposed for eternity. Yours in death S.D.

Expect the worst and that's what you'll get only it will be much worse.

The purpose of writing is to make your mother and father drop dead with shame.

I got disappointed in human nature as well and gave it up because I found it too much like my own.

Revenge is what I want. Nothing but pure unadulterated revenge. But my mother brought me up to be a lady.

Rid the mind of knowledge when looking for pleasure. Or start thinking and find a lot of pain.

I'm all for Christianity, but insolence must be put down.

The inhabitants will always see both sides of an argument so long as it can result in a fight.

You know, there must be happiness somewhere, when a lawyer dies.

See all the women seated, youth in their face lifts, old age in their hands.

And no. I must not go on thinking. For the pain will never go away. You just go on and live. In the dust of desertion. Still falling where last I loved.

To marry the Irish is to look for poverty.

The best book of the year, Grobel's writing is quite marvelous. The Hustons reads vividly, just like one of John Huston's great films.

At the age of 18 I don't think that I thought very differently than I did at the age of 25. I think we instinctively have the knowledge and adapt the knowledge we need.

If you're going to love somebody, love somebody who needs it.

Writing is turning life's worst moments into money.

O summer and soft wind. Relieves the heart and makes living cheaper.

... With a slight miscalculated leap cleared to the iron picket fence. Put the fear of God into me, picket fences and balls don't mix.