Quotes from book
The Third Policeman

The Third Policeman
Flann O'Brien

The Third Policeman is a novel by Irish writer Brian O'Nolan, writing under the pseudonym Flann O'Brien. It was written between 1939 and 1940, but after it initially failed to find a publisher, the author withdrew the manuscript from circulation and claimed he had lost it. The book remained unpublished at the time of his death in 1966. It was published by MacGibbon & Kee in 1967.

“You mean that because I have no name I cannot die and that you cannot be held answerable for death even if you kill me?”

Flann O'Brien book The Third Policeman

The Third Policeman (1967)

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

Flann O'Brien book The Third Policeman

Source: The Third Policeman (1967)

“Your talk," I said, "is surely the handiwork of wisdom because not one word of it do I understand.”

Flann O'Brien book The Third Policeman

Source: The Third Policeman (1967)

“Strange enlightenments are vouchsafed to those who seek the higher places.”

Flann O'Brien book The Third Policeman

Source: The Third Policeman (1967)

“I am completely half afraid to think.”

Flann O'Brien book The Third Policeman

Source: The Third Policeman (1967)

“What you think is the point is not the point at all but only the beginning of the sharpness.”

Flann O'Brien book The Third Policeman

Source: The Third Policeman

“The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people and half bicycles.”

Flann O'Brien book The Third Policeman

Page 85
The Third Policeman (1967)

“Is it life?" he answered, "I would rather be without it," he said, "for there is queer small utility in it. You cannot eat it or drink it or smoke it in your pipe, it does not keep the rain out and it is a poor armful in the dark if you strip it and take it to bed with you after a night of porter when you are shivering with the red passion. It is a great mistake and a thing better done without, like bed-jars and foreign bacon.”

Flann O'Brien book The Third Policeman

The Third Policeman (1967)

“When things go wrong and will not come right”

Flann O'Brien book The Third Policeman

The Third Policeman (1967)

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

Flann O'Brien book The Third Policeman

The Third Policeman (1967)

“You told me what the first rule of wisdom is," I said. "What is the second rule?"
"That can be answered," he said. "There are five in all. Always ask any questions that are to be asked and never answer any. Turn everything you hear to your own advantage. Always carry a repair outfit. Take left turns as much as possible. Never apply your front brake first…If you follow them," said the Sergeant, "you will save your soul and you will never get a fall on a slippy road.”

Flann O'Brien book The Third Policeman

Page 60
The Third Policeman (1967)

“I felt so sad and so entirely disappointed that tears came into my eyes and a lump of incommunicable poignancy swelled tragically in my throat. I began to feel intensely every fragment of my equal humanity. The life that was bubbling at the end of my fingers was real and nearly painful in intensity and so was the beauty of my warm face and the loose humanity of my limbs and the racy health of my red rich blood. To leave it all without good reason and to smash the little empire into small fragments was a thing too pitiful even to refuse to think about.”

Flann O'Brien book The Third Policeman

The Third Policeman (1967)

“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?”

Flann O'Brien book The Third Policeman

The Third Policeman (1967)

“"Who is Fox?", I asked.”

Flann O'Brien book The Third Policeman

The Third Policeman (1967)

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