Life isn’t all beer and skittles, but beer and skittles, or something better of the same sort, must form a good part of every Englishman’s education.

Modern life is often a mechanical oppression, and liquor is the only mechanical relief.

Give me chastity and continence, but not just now.

Sex and drugs and rock and roll.

I have sometimes thought that the laws ought not to punish those actions of evil which are committed when the senses are steeped in intoxication.

I mean, why on earth (outside sickness and hangovers) aren’t people continually drunk? I want ecstasy of the mind all the time.

Abstainer, n. A weak man who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.

The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. And I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. Probably at the next gas station.

To live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient for human beings; we need to transcend, transport, escape; we need meaning, understanding, and explanation.

People who’ve drunk neat wine don’t care a damn.

Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.

An old man is twice a child, and so is a drunken man.

Thanks be to God: since my leaving drinking of wine, I do find myself much better and do mind my business better, and do spend less money, and less time lost in idle company.