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.

The drunken man is a living corpse.

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

Drink today and drown all sorrow; / You shall perhaps not do it tomorrow.

There was a great deal of drinking among us but little drunkenness. We all seemed to feel that Prohibition was a personal affront and that we had a moral duty to undermine it.

The pleasure we hold in esteem for the course of our lives ought to have a greater share of our time dedicated to it; we should refuse no occasion nor omit any opportunity of drinking, and always have it in our minds.

Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations—wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.

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

Give me chastity and continence, but not just now.

Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

Whoever gulps down wine as a horse gulps down water is called a Scythian.

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.

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