Quotes about alcohol

Upon the first goblet he read this inscription, monkey wine; upon the second, lion wine; upon the third, sheep wine; upon the fourth, swine wine. These four inscriptions expressed the four descending degrees of drunkenness: the first, that which enlivens; the second, that which irritates; the third, that which stupefies; finally the last, that which brutalizes.

For life became easy as soon as you drank. Oh, miracle of this borderland! It made life hard for a sober man, but whom did it leave sober?

Next to music beer was best.

I’m drunk. Hypocrisy is the natural companion of beer.

Liquor doesn’t make you feel better. Just makes you not so worried about feeling bad.

After my mother finally quit drinking, she entered a brief epoch of peace in her life. Gone were the paranoia, the accusations, the belittlements, the bitter rage of judgment, the look of fear. For years, nearly every day a lost weekend, she had been possessed by the dark amber ghast of gag-sweet Taylor Cream Sherry. Living with her back then had been like living with a vampire whose bite drained but never conferred immortality.

Some of us got this feeling stuck inside, all the time, like we’ve done something wrong. Like we ourselves are something wrong … We drink alcohol because it helps us feel like we can be ourselves and not be afraid. But we punish ourselves with it.

There are various reasons why an individual might habitually consume large quantities of alcohol, but they all effectively boil down to the same thing. Five years ago, my business partner was a happy drunk. Three years later, he had become a moody drunk. And by the last summer, he was fumbling at the knob of the door to alcoholism. As with most habitual drinkers, he was nice-enough, regular-if-not-exactly-sharp kind of guy. He thought so too. That's why he drank. Because it seemed that with alcohol in his system, he could more fully embody this idea of being that kind of guy.

The sober devil can hide his cloven hoof; but when the devil drinks he loses his cunning and grows honest.

Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same.

Vermouth always makes me brilliant unless it makes me idiotic, but we'll hope for the best.

The last thing a drunkard loses, you see, is his cunning: it outlasts his soul by a long season.