Selected alcohol quotes

1. Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been drinking.

2. A man is a fool if he drinks before he reaches the age of 50, and a fool if he doesn't afterward.

3. It is better to hide ignorance, but it is hard to do this when we relax over wine.

4. A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle.

5. Wine gives courage and makes men more apt for passion.

6. Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.

7. It takes a good deal of physical courage to ride a horse. This, however, I have. I get it at about forty cents a flask, and take it as required.

8. The piano has been drinking, not me.

9. Christmas at my house is always at least six or seven times more pleasant than anywhere else. We start drinking early. And while everyone else is seeing only one Santa Claus, we'll be seeing six or seven.

10. I had been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who got drunk - and I would have liked to have the boozing scholars of the Universities wheeled into line and properly chastised for their squalid misuse of what I must ever regard as a gift of the gods.

11. When I was younger I made it a rule never to take strong drink before lunch. It is now my rule never to do so before breakfast.

12. I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

13. When the wine goes in, strange things come out.

14. Sherry...a silly, sickly compound, the use of which will transform a nation, however bold and warlike by nature, into a race of sketchers, scribblers, and punsters, in fact into what Englishmen are at the present day.

15. 'I think I think too much. That's why I drink!'

16. Beer, of course, is actually a depressant. But poor people will never stop hoping otherwise.

17. A bumper of good liquor Will end a contest quicker Than justice, judge, or vicar.

18. My family was a bunch of drunks, when I was six I came up missing, they put my picture on a bottle of scotch.

19. A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.

20. I am more afraid of King Alcohol than of all the bullets of the enemy.

21. Sleep- the most beautiful experience in life- except drink.

22. Farewell, woman! I intend Henceforth every night to sit With my lewd, well-natured friend, Drinking to engender wit.

23. Oh many a peer of England brews Livelier liquor than the Muse, And malt does more than Milton can To justify God's ways to man. Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink For fellows whom it hurts to think.

24. All I ever did was to sell beer and whiskey to our best people. All I ever did was to supply a demand that was pretty popular. Why, the very guys that make my trade good are the ones that yell the loudest about me.

25. For the first twenty years of my life I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but eventually I had to give it up. Throughout the next twenty-two years I lay still and discovered that after a few minutes I could drop off with no problem. Follow seven beers with a couple of scotches and a thimble of good marijuana, and it's funny how sleep just sort of comes on its own. Often I never even make it to bed. I'd squat down to pet the cat and wake up on the floor eight hours later, having lost a perfectly good excuse to change my clothes. I'm now told that this is not called 'going to sleep' but rather 'passing out,' a phrase that carries a distinct hint of judgment.

26. One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fiber of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a penknife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket!

27. There's no question that we need tougher drunk-driving laws for repeat offenders. We need to take a lesson from European countries where driving isn't a right but a privilege. There isn't a person on this planet by this time who doesn't know that when you consume alcohol you shouldn't get behind the wheel of a car. The people who do it anyway should have their privilege to drive taken away.

28. I saw this wino, he was eating grapes. I was like, 'Dude, you have to wait.'[5]

29. Wine makes a man more pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.

30. Tequila, scorpion honey, harsh dew of the doglands, essence of Aztec, crema de cacti; tequila, oily and thermal like the sun in solution; tequila, liquid geometry of passion; Tequila, the buzzard god who copulates in midair with the ascending souls of dying virgins; tequila, firebug in the house of good taste; O tequila, savage water of sorcery, what confusion and mischief your sly, rebellious drops do generate!'

31. I exercise extreme self control. I never drink anything stronger than gin before breakfast.

32. More people are driven insane through religious hysteria than by drinking alcohol.

33. The water was not fit to drink. To make it palatable, we had to add whisky. By diligent effort, I learnt to like it.

34. The most dangerous drink is gin. You have to be really, really careful with that. And you also have to be 45, female and sitting on the stairs. Because gin isn't really a drink, it's more a mascara thinner. 'Nobody likes my shoes! I made... I made fifty... fucking vol-au-vents, and not one of you... not one of you... said 'Thank you.'' And my favourite: 'Everybody, shut up. Shut up! This song is all about me.'

35. Samuel L. Jackson: [people are drinking his beer] Good motherfuckin' choice, motherfuckers! Samuel Jackson! Made painstakingly by me, Samuel L. Jackson! It'll get you drunk! You'll be fucking fat girls in no time! You might even fight a nigga or two! MMM MMM, bitch!

36. Beer commercials usually have big men, manly men doing manly things: 'You just killed a small animal. It's time for a light beer.' Why not a realistic beer commercial like, 'It's five o'clock in the morning. You just pissed on a dumpster. It's Miller time.'

37. How well I remember my first encounter with The Devil's Brew. I happened to stumble across a case of bourbon- and went right on stumbling for several days thereafter. (From a radio show, a 'temperance lecture'.)

38. I have taken more good from alcohol than alcohol has taken from me.

39. If you drink O'Douls, you don't drink. But if you drink 20 O'Douls in a half hour, then you're a fucking non-alcoholic. Non-alcoholism is a problem too. And there are symptoms, like when you fall down, does it always hurt? - Live at the 40 Watt Club, Athens, Georgia, April 9, 2002

40. Inspiring bold John Barleycorn! What dangers thou canst make us scorn! Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil; Wi' usquabae, we'll face the devil!

41. And I got so drunk, I got so drunk that I actually woke up thinking, 'Should I get up and pee, or just pee in the bed?' Actually weighing the pros and the cons. 'Well, it'll be warm for a minute... It's a big bed, I'll just roll over... I'll just blame it on that guy!'

42. John Barleycorn got up again, And sore surprised them all.

43. And you realize you're an alcoholic when you repeat yourself. You realize you're an alcoholic when you repeat yourself. You realize you're an alcoholic...oh, dammit, dammit, God DAMMIT.

44. Winston Churchill, the greatest orator of all time, was so fucked up on champagne and cognac, that he may not have done some of his own speeches. They were done by a man from the BBC who did Winnie the Pooh. 'We will fight them on the beaches, in the air, on the land, Eeyore and Tigger!'

45. If alcohol is a crutch, then Jack Daniel's is the wheelchair.

46. Do not allow children to mix your martini. It is unseemly and they use too much vermouth.

47. 'Our Father, who art in Krebari, hallowed be thy glass. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in the lounges. Give us this day our daily splash, and forgive us our hangovers as we forgive those who continue to hangover against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil...and somebody give us all a ride home.'

48. It was a woman drove me to drink....you know I never did thank her.

49. I love scotch, scotchy scotch scotch, here it goes down, down into my belly.

50. (Funnels a beer). Fill it up again! Fill it up again! Once it hits your lips, it's so good!

51. I cannot eat but little meat, My stomach is not good; But sure I think that I can drink With him that wears a hood. Though I go bare, take ye no care, I nothing am a-cold; I stuff my skin so full within Of jolly good ale and old.

52. I'm not a drinker - my body will not tolerate spirits. I had two Martinis on New Year's Eve and I tried to hijack an elevator and fly it to Cuba.

53. So, when my Days of Impotence approach, And I'm by Pox and Wine's unlucky chance Driv'n from the pleasing Billows of debauch On the dull Shore of lazy Temperance; My Pains at least some Respite shall afford While I behold the Battles you maintain When Fleets of Glasses sail about the Board, From whose Broad-sides Volleys of Wit shall rain.

54. My manager saw me drinking backstage and he said 'Mitch, don't use liquor as a crutch.' I can't use liquor as a crutch, because a crutch helps me walk. Liquor severely fucks up the way I walk. It ain't like a crutch, it's like a step I didn't see. - Live at the 40 Watt Club, Athens, Georgia, April 9, 2002

55. I have this theory about why men kill each other and break things. ... Never mind. It's a dumb theory. I was going to say it was all sexual ... but everything is sexual ... but alcohol.

56. Well, I'll tell you a story but you won't listen It's about a nightmare steeped in tradition It's the story of a coked-up pansy Who spends his nights in flights of fancy Met two fellas over gin and mixers They talked for a while, he soon got the picture Pete Docherty is a souped up Soho mincer And the other was a pikey with a knowledge of scripture

57. It is necessary for me to drink and drive.

58. I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

59. 'Why are we drinking Zima? It's beyond irony. It's not funny or anything. It's just gross. Why not just serve us jugs of Hitler's piss instead?'

60. Hip flasks are the juice machines of the alcohol world - everyone has one and it never gets used.

61. As for the brandy, 'nothing extenuate;' and the water, put nought in it malice.

62. Speaking to a driving instructor in Scotland, he asked: 'How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?'[1]

63. 'In 1969 I gave up women and alcohol. It was the worst 20 minutes of my life.'

64. 'I've stopped drinking, but only while I'm asleep.'

65. Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector. It encourages a man to be expansive, even reckless, while lie detectors are only a challenge to tell lies successfully.

66. There are, broadly speaking, two types of drinkers. There is the man whom we all know, stupid, unimaginative, whose brain is bitten numbly by numb maggots; who walks generously with wide-spread, tentative legs, falls frequently in the gutter, and who sees, in the extremity of his ecstasy, blue mice and pink elephants.... The other type of drinker has imagination, vision. Even when most pleasantly jingled he walks straight and naturally, never staggers nor falls, and knows just where he is and what he is doing. It is not his body but his brain that is drunken.

67. I was five years old the first time I got drunk.

68. Men do not knowingly drink for the effect alcohol produces on the body. What they drink for is the brain-effect; and if it must come through the body, so much the worse for the body.

69. The fortunate man is the one who cannot take more than a couple of drinks without becoming intoxicated. The unfortunate wight is the one who can take many glasses without betraying a sign; who must take numerous glasses in order to get the kick.

70. Some American writers who have known each other for years have never met in the daytime or when both were sober.

71. Licker talks mighty loud w'en it gits loose from de jug.

72. From wine what sudden friendship springs!

73. I was poisoning myself with alcohol and medicating myself. I was trying to numb things. I was trying not to feel things, and that's ridiculous. It's one of the dumbest things you can do, because all you're doing is postponing the inevitable. Someday you'll have to look all those things in the eye rather than try to numb the pain. (2004)

74. Thank God I never hooked on anything. I never had a monkey on my back. I just wanted to self-medicate, to numb myself through liquor. It's how I dealt with life, reality, stress, change, sadness, memories. The list goes on. I was really trying to feel nothing. (2004)

75. The more you drink, the better you're able to cope in Washington.

76. I can honestly say, all the bad things that ever happened to me were directly, directly attributed to drugs and alcohol. I mean, I would never piss on a piece of stone at the fucking Alamo at nine o'clock in the morning dressed in a woman's evening dress sober. I mean I know I'm a fucking crazy-ass but still.

77. When I was a practicing alcoholic, I was unbelievable. One side effect was immense suspicion: I'd come off tour like Inspector Clouseau on acid. 'Where's this cornflake come from? It wasn't here before.

78. It was my Uncle George who discovered that alcohol was a food well in advance of modern medical thought.

79. Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors - and miss.

80. Alcoholics build defenses like the Dutch build dikes. I spent the first twelve years or so of my married life assuring myself that I 'just liked to drink.' I also employed the world-famous Hemingway Defense. Although never clearly articulated (it would not be manly to do so), the Hemingway Defense goes something like this: as a writer, I am a very sensitive fellow, but I am also a man, and real men don't give in to their sensitivities. Only sissy-men do that. Therefore I drink. How else can I face the existential horror of it all and continue to work? Besides, come on, I can handle it. A real man always can.