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 drinks seriously is poor: so poor, poor, extra poor, me.

There is a great gulf between the really creative person and normal people. The totally creative person does not have the rest of his life in proper proportion.

In America they make too much fuss of poets; in London they make too little.

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.

Between threading a needle and raving insanity is the smallest eye in creation.

A lot of warm vulgarity is incomparably preferable to a little bit of pinched niceness