J. P. Donleavy

James Patrick Donleavy (23 April 1926 – 11 September 2017) was a U.S.-born Irish novelist and playwright.

Quotes

• When you don't have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it's sex. When you have both it's health, you worry about getting rupture or something. If everything is simply jake then you're frightened of death.
  • The Ginger Man (1955; New York: Delacorte Press, 1973) p. 45.

• All I want
  Is one break
  Which is not
  My neck.
  • The Ginger Man (1955; New York: Delacorte Press, 1973) p. 319.

• Rid the mind of knowledge when looking for pleasure. Or start thinking and find a lot of pain.
  • The Saddest Summer of Samuel S (New York: Delacorte Press, 1966) pp. 62-3.

• I got disappointed in human nature as well and gave it up because I found it too much like my own.
  • A Fairy Tale of New York (London: Eyre Methuen, 1973) p. 224.

• Writing is turning one's worst moments into money.
  • Interviewed in Punch, March 22, 1978, p. 484.

• On Being Old. It's not nice but take comfort that you won't stay that way for ever.
  • The Unexpurgated Code: A Complete Manual of Survival & Manners (New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence, 1975) p. 278.

• The inhabitants will always see both sides of an argument so long as it can result in a fight.
  • "The Funeral of Denny Cordell" (1995), cited from An Author and his Image: The Collected Short Pieces (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1997) p. 178.