Drunkeness Quotes

“I'm drunk but truthful.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot

“The tragedy of Dionysus: Wear a black robe at night, and white you’ll wear by morning; but wear a purple robe to the midnight feast, and when you wake you’ll dress in black to mourn your soul deceased.”
― Roman Payne, Crepuscule

“Therapy to life: Eat with the wise, and drink with the fools!”
― Anthony Liccione

“In general I strive for greatness and rational achievement, but I admit to you I’ve a terrible fondness for women, a tendency towards drunkenness, and a weakness for the fumes of the poppy—opium and other miserable beauties.”
― Roman Payne

“I was sprawled out in my usual position on the couch, half asleep but entirely drunk, torturing myself by tearing memories out of my mind at random like matches from a book, striking them one at a time and drowsily setting myself on fire.”
― Jonathan Tropper, How to Talk to a Widower

“And even in the open air the stench of whiskey was appalling. To this fiendish poison, I am certain, the greater part of the squalor I saw is due. Many of these vermin were obviously not foreigners—I counted at least five American countenances in which a certain vanished decency half showed through the red whiskey bloating. Then I reflected upon the power of wine, and marveled how self-respecting persons can imbibe such stuff, or permit it to be served upon their tables. It is the deadliest enemy with which humanity is faced. Not all the European wars could produce a tenth of the havock occasioned among men by the wretched fluid which responsible governments allow to be sold openly. Looking upon that mob of sodden brutes, my mind’s eye pictured a scene of different kind; a table bedecked with spotless linen and glistening silver, surrounded by gentlemen immaculate in evening attire—and in the reddening faces of those gentlemen I could trace the same lines which appeared in full development of the beasts of the crowd. Truly, the effects of liquor are universal, and the shamelessness of man unbounded. How can reform be wrought in the crowd, when supposedly respectable boards groan beneath the goblets of rare old vintages? Is mankind asleep, that its enemy is thus entertained as a bosom friend? But a week or two ago, at a parade held in honour of the returning Rhode Island National Guard, the Chief Executive of this State, Mr. Robert Livingston Beeckman, prominent in New York, Newport, and Providence society, appeared in such an intoxicated condition that he could scarce guide his mount, or retain his seat in the saddle, and he the guardian of the liberties and interests of that Colony carved by the faith, hope, and labour of Roger Williams from the wilderness of savage New-England! I am perhaps an extremist on the subject of prohibition, but I can see no justification whatsoever for the tolerance of such a degrading demon as drink.”
― H.P. Lovecraft, Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters

“I asked him what he said, for there was such a mish-mash of Conversation around us that I could scarcely understand him - the frequenters of Taverns have Hearts of Curd and Souls of Milk Sop, but they have Mouths like Cannons which stink of Tobacco and their own foul Breath as they cry What News? What's a Clock? Methinks it's Cold to Day! Thus is it a Hospital For Fools”
― Peter Ackroyd, Hawksmoor

“Later tonight am going to tell you that I love you and maybe by that time you will be drunk enough to believe me.”
― Tennessee Williams

“If only I’d remembered that old proverb: When three people say you are drunk, go to sleep.”
― Jenny Offill, Weather

“Oh you dear companions

Electric bells of the stations song of the reapers

Butcher's sleigh regiment of unnumbered streets

Cavalry of bridges nights livid with alcohol

The cities I've seen lived like mad women

(The Voyager)”
― Pierre Albert-Birot, The Cubist Poets in Paris: An Anthology

“At least if I
was picking guys up in fits of drunken idiocy, they were not only handsome, but also even mildly clever.”
― C.E. Murphy, Coyote Dreams

“Lady Veronica was not an unknown hazard. She was a charming woman [..] and very delightful when she was, as they put it herself - but unfortunately at unpredictable intervals, she was not herself. Her husband, Major Carlton-Sandways coped fairly well.”
― Agatha Christie, Cat Among the Pigeons

“One drunken night does not a madness make, Essex.”
― Johannes T. Evans, Heart of Stone