[On journalists:] They are the scavengers of society who, possessing no guts of their own, tear out the guts of celebrities. They have the sycophantic, false enthusing gush of maiden aunts: who are accustomed to being trampled on doormats.

But the true evil of drink lies in the disillusion: that the initial pleasure very soon evaporates, leaving a demoralizing craving for more, which is not even temporarily pleasurable. Which then leads to deterioration of the faculties of both body and mind; plus a bewildering lack of co-operation between the two.

Anybody who thinks there is any vague chance of adult exchange with a child is up the spout; and would be much less disappointed if they recognized the chasm unbridgeably dividing them.

Anyone who has attempted to create knows the hellishness of it, which consists in the final inescapability from it. Knows that anything, however deadly humdrum to drug the senses, is preferable to it. Knows the gigantic effort to get started on the boundless, unwieldy, shapeless material; the forest of hesitations; of what to keep and what to throw out; the running-out terror and reluctance in one of finishing.

there is this malign curse laid on dipsomaniacs. That they must absolutely have a drink: in order to feel strong enough to stop drinking.

But there is that about well-intentioned advice that has the opposite effect of the one intended, and causes a Spanish fly of perversity to enter into the hitherto passive soul.

Virtue in a man doesn't make you want to grab him.