If being a spokesman for a generation is a fleeting occupation, being a symbol of an era is downright dangerous for anyone who has the bad luck to outlive it.

The only thing worse for smoking than drinking is quitting drinking. Because then it's the only thing you can do.

Bottles of wine aren't like paintings. At some point you have to consume them. The object in life is to die with no bottles of wine in your cellar. To drink your last bottle of wine and go to sleep that night and not wake up.

I realized that I might not ever make it as a writer, that it might be because I wasn't good enough, or that it might be because the odds were just too long.

You keep thinking that with practice you will eventually get the knack of enjoying superficial encounters, that you will stop looking for the universal solvent, stop grieving. You will learn to compound happiness out of small increments of mindless pleasure.

Things happen, people change,' is what Amanda said. For her that covered it. You wanted an explanation, and ending that would assign blame and dish up justice. You considered violence and you considered reconciliation . But what you are left with is a premonition of the way your life will fade behind you, like a book you have read too quickly, leaving a dwindling trail of images and emotions, until all you can remember is a name.

Eat, drink and remarry is my motto.