Life's Pleasures Quote by Brendan Behan

Behan turns the grand talk of purpose into a pub-sized trinity: food, drink, and being loved. It’s funny because it’s blunt, and it’s blunt because it’s defensive. A dramatist who lived hard and died young, Behan had little patience for pieties about self-actualization or national destiny. He compresses “the world” down to the body and the heart, as if to say: before you build an ideology, you’d better check whether you’re hungry, thirsty, or lonely.

The line works as a small act of sabotage against moral posturing. “The most important things” is the kind of phrase politicians and priests love; Behan fills it with needs so basic they embarrass any attempt to sound lofty. The rhythm matters: two items are practical, almost transactional, then the third lands with a twist of vulnerability. “Somebody to love you” isn’t “love,” the abstract virtue; it’s the craving to be chosen and held by another person, not merely to perform affection as a duty.

There’s also a specifically Irish, mid-century edge to the joke: a culture steeped in Catholic restraint and political seriousness, where drink is both social glue and sanctioned escape. Behan’s subtext is less “hedonism is good” than “stop pretending you’re above survival.” In three clauses, he sketches a worldview where dignity is measured not by ideals but by whether you can eat, sip, and matter to someone.