There are plenty of alcoholics who can be magnificent when drunk: it does not make them any less alcoholic.
Ingrid Bengis (1944-2017) American writer, business person
“Monroe According to Mailer: One Legend Feeds on Another,” Ms. (1973-10)
(Source)
Reprinted in Michael Lennon, ed., Critical Essays on Norman Mailer (1986).
Quotations about:
alcoholism
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
You know a little drink now and then never hurt nobody, but when you can’t git started without asking the bottle, you in trouble.
If a man be discreet enough to take to hard drinking in his youth, before his general emptiness is ascertained, his friends invariably credit him with a host of shining qualities which, we are given to understand, lie balked and frustrated by his one unfortunate weakness.
Agnes Repplier (1855-1950) American writer
“A Plea for Humor,” Points of View (1891)
(Source)
Offered as a hypothetical sardonic observation by the author William Dean Howells.
Alcoholism isn’t a spectator sport. Eventually the whole family gets to play.
Joyce Rebeta-Burditt (b. 1938) American writer, television producer
The Cracker Factory, ch. 15 (1977)
(Source)
Alcohol is a good preservative for everything but brains.
Mary Pettibone Poole (fl. 1930s) American aphorist
A Glass Eye at the Keyhole, “No Axe to Grind” (1938)
(Source)
Alcohol is a very patient drug. It will wait for the alcoholic to pick it up ONE MORE TIME. It will wait forever.
Mercedes McCambridge (1916-2004) American actress
The Quality of Mercy: An Autobiography (1981)
(Source)
Almost anything can be preserved in alcohol, except health, happiness, and money.
You’re trying to drown your sorrows in alcohol and it won’t work. Sorrows know how to swim.
Ann Landers (1918-2002) American advice columnist [pseud. for Eppie Lederer]
“Ask Ann Landers,” syndicated column (1958)
Landers used the phrase multiple times, e.g.,However, the phrase predates her in a variety of anonymous sources; see here for more discussion.
- "And now an added P.S. In these days of political unrest, financial crisis and emotional upheaval, a word to those of you who are trying to drown your sorrow. Please be aware that sorrow knows how to swim." [The Ann Landers Encyclopedia: A to Z (1978)]
- "People who drink to drown their sorrow should be told that sorrow knows how to swim."
I often think of alcohol as a genie in a bottle. It promises everything but eventually imprisons you in the bottle itself.
Erica Jong (b. 1942) American writer, poet
Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life, ch. 2 (2006)
(Source)
Besides, there are two things that will be believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has taken to drink.
Wine has drowned more than the sea.
Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings]
Alt. trans.: "Wine drowns more than the sea."
Wine hath drowned more Men than the Sea.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #5744 (1732)
(Source)
