“You drink like a goddamn fish,” Charlie said. “That’s nothing. I swim like an alcoholic.” – Lawrence Block, writing as Sheldon Lord, 69 Barrow Street “He got the hell away from Sondra’s place and the Gila Monster and found a bar, a nice ordinary bar where the customers were quiet, clean-shaven alcoholics and liquor was [...]
“I finished my Scotch, already thinking not of the next drink, but of the one after that.” – J. G. Ballard, Millennium People
“It tastes like licking a library book from 1964.” – John Hastie, after drinking Jeppson’s Malört
“I give you a beer, and now you want an egg in it, for Christ’s sake.” – Charles Willeford, Sideswipe
“They’re so self-righteous. I never pissed my pants. This guy killed a man with a motorboat. You know what gets you over something like that? Drinking.” – Roger Sterling, Sterling’s Gold
“The well-made cocktail is that most gracious of drinks. It pleases the senses. The shared delight of those who partake in common of this refreshing nectar breaks the ice of formal reserve. Taut nerves relax; taut muscles relax; tired eyes brighten; tongues loosen; friendships deepen; the whole world become a better place in which to [...]
“I’m really sorry about her condition — ” “Don’t be. The world would look better if everybody drank a glassful of Wild Turkey in the morning.” — Charles Willeford, New Hope for the Dead
“A cigarette and a drink would taste good, he thought, damned good. There had to be a bottle in the glove compartment — and who keeps gloves in glove compartments and trunks in trunk compartments — and he willed a bottle to be in the glove compartment and there was. He swallowed some of the [...]
When the world is too dark And I need the light inside of me I’ll walk into a bar And drink fifteen pints of beer — Shane MacGowan, “Streams of Whiskey”
“I had three cans of beer along. I drank them slowly in the increasing, savage heat of midday, dropping the empties into the slow river. I was not a good citizen. I didn’t flatten them first.” — Shepard Rifkin, The Murderer Vine