The decline of the aperitif may well be one of the most depressing phenomena of our time.

Mystery is the basic element of all works of art.

If someone were to tell me I had twenty years left, and ask me how I'd like to spend them, I'd reply 'Give me two hours a day of activity, and I'll take the other twenty-two in dreams.'

I am an atheist, thanks be to God.

If you were to ask me if I'd ever had the bad luck to miss my daily cocktail, I'd have to say that I doubt it; where certain things are concerned, I plan ahead.

A paranoiac, like a poet, is born, not made.

Tobacco and alcohol, delicious fathers of abiding friendships and fertile reveries.