“
After moral poisoning, one requires physical remedies and a bottle of champagne.
”
”
Stendhal (The Red and the Black)
“
I wanted to hold happiness in reserve, like a bottle of champagne. I postponed it because I was afraid, because I overvalued it, and then I didn't want to use it up, because what do you wish for then?
”
”
Curtis Sittenfeld (The Man of My Dreams)
“
If there weren't an all-powerful dictator and his monstrous horde to get to, I'd be opening a bottle of champagne.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Ruin and Rising (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #3))
“
The thing about champagne,you say, unfoiling the cork, unwinding the wire restraint, is that is the ultimate associative object. Every time you open a bottle of champagne, it's a celebration, so there's no better way of starting a celebration than opening a bottle of champagne. Every time you sip it, you're sipping from all those other celebrations. The joy accumulates over time.
”
”
David Levithan (The Lover's Dictionary)
“
My glass is not only half-full, it holds five-hundred-dollar-a-bottle Dom Perignon champagne.
”
”
Suzanne Brockmann (Into the Storm (Troubleshooters, #10))
“
Think champagne, drink champagne!
”
”
Ellen Dean
“
Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like drinking it.
”
”
Winston S. Churchill
“
I was told
The average girl begins to plan her wedding at the age of 7
She picks the colors and the cake first
By the age of 10
She knows time,
And location
By 17
She’s already chosen a gown
2 bridesmaids
And a maid of honor
By 23
She’s waiting for a man
Who wont break out in hives when he hears the word “commitment”
Someone who doesn’t smell like a Band-Aid drenched in lonely
Someone who isn’t a temporary solution to the empty side of the bed
Someone
Who’ll hold her hand like it’s the only one they’ve ever seen
To be honest
I don’t know what kind of tux I’ll be wearing
I have no clue what want my wedding will look like
But I imagine
The women who pins my last to hers
Will butterfly down the aisle
Like a 5 foot promise
I imagine
Her smile
Will be so large that you’ll see it on google maps
And know exactly where our wedding is being held
The woman that I plan to marry
Will have champagne in her walk
And I will get drunk on her footsteps
When the pastor asks
If I take this woman to be my wife
I will say yes before he finishes the sentence
I’ll apologize later for being impolite
But I will also explain him
That our first kiss happened 6 years ago
And I’ve been practicing my “Yes”
For past 2, 165 days
When people ask me about my wedding
I never really know what to say
But when they ask me about my future wife
I always tell them
Her eyes are the only Christmas lights that deserve to be seen all year long
I say
She thinks too much
Misses her father
Loves to laugh
And she’s terrible at lying
Because her face never figured out how to do it correctl
I tell them
If my alarm clock sounded like her voice
My snooze button would collect dust
I tell them
If she came in a bottle
I would drink her until my vision is blurry and my friends take away my keys
If she was a book
I would memorize her table of contents
I would read her cover-to-cover
Hoping to find typos
Just so we can both have a few things to work on
Because aren’t we all unfinished?
Don’t we all need a little editing?
Aren’t we all waiting to be proofread by someone?
Aren’t we all praying they will tell us that we make sense
She don’t always make sense
But her imperfections are the things I love about her the most
I don’t know when I will be married
I don’t know where I will be married
But I do know this
Whenever I’m asked about my future wife
I always say
…She’s a lot like you
”
”
Rudy Francisco
“
Always keep a bottle of Champagne in the fridge for special occasions. Sometimes, the special occasion is that you’ve got a bottle of Champagne in the fridge.
”
”
Hester Browne
“
I'm going out for a bottle of champagne. We're going to get bombed.
”
”
Stephen King (The Dead Zone)
“
Don't die with a bottle of champagne in your fridge.
”
”
Rufus Sewell
“
Here I am, struggling to banish any foolish imagined affections for you so that I can consummate this marriage of convenience in a proper businesslike fashion, as we agreed. And then you go and read a book?"
While he was at it, why didn't he just bring her a basket of kittens, a bottle of champagne, and pose naked with a rose caught between his teeth?
”
”
Tessa Dare (When a Scot Ties the Knot (Castles Ever After, #3))
“
The champagne had been donated by one of Gus's doctors - Gus being the kind of person who inspires doctors to give their best bottles of champagne to children.
”
”
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
“
I'm an outlaw, not a philosopher, but I know this much: there's meaning in everything, all things are connected, and a good champagne is a drink.'
Bernard began to sing again. Timidly, Leigh-Cheri joined in. Between verses, they opened another bottle. The popping of its cork echoed throughout the great stone chamber. Of the three billion people on earth, only Bernard and Leigh-Cheri heard the popping of the cork and its echoes. Only Bernard and Leigh-Cheri passed out under the tablecloth.
”
”
Tom Robbins (Still Life with Woodpecker)
“
Was it Brigid Brophy who gave up on a certain Virginia Woolf novel when she discovered that Woolf believed one needed a corkscrew to open a bottle of champagne?
”
”
David Markson (The Last Novel)
“
Poetic simile was strictly limited to statements like 'his mighty steed was as fleet as the wind on a fairly calm day, say about Force Three,' and any loose talk about a beloved having a face that launched a thousand ships would have to be backed by evidence that the object of desire did indeed look like a bottle of champagne.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (The Light Fantastic (Discworld, #2; Rincewind, #2))
“
Churchill once said that meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne, and that knowing him was like drinking it.
”
”
Stephanie Dray (Becoming Madam Secretary)
“
Dear woman, look at yourself in the mirror and be your own favourite person. Every curve, every freckle, every hair on your skin. Because you are worth your tears, your laughter, your joys and your pains. You are worth the broken roads you've traveled, the nights you've spent alone with a bottle of champagne, the times you climbed out of graves. You are worth the smiles only you see, the ones you generously share, then all the others in between. You're worth the love that's meant for you and the pains you've broken through. Dear woman, look at yourself; you love you.
”
”
C. JoyBell C.
“
I dye my jeans jet black once a week, but they never seem dark enough. I bleach my hair bright white twice a month but it never seems light enough. I drink two and a half bottles of champagne every night but I never seem drunk enough. And I know I’m not high enough until someone grabs my face to check my vision to see if I’m still responsive— And even then, I’m thinking to myself that I should probably do one more line, you know, just to be safe.
”
”
Kris Kidd (I Can't Feel My Face (Altar Collective Presents...))
“
Even for those who dislike champagne, myself among them, there are two champagnes one can't refuse: Dom Perignon and the even superior Cristal, which is bottled in a natural-colored glass that displays its pale blaze, a chilled fire of such prickly dryness that, swallowed, seems not to have been swallowed at all, but instead to have turned to vapors on the tongue and burned there to one damp sweet ash.
”
”
Truman Capote (Answered Prayers)
“
The King has stepped down, the path to the throne is clear. If there weren't an all-powerful dictator and his monstrous horde to attend to, I'd be opening a bottle of champagne.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Ruin and Rising (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #3))
“
There comes a time in a man's life, if he is unlucky and leads a full life, when he has a secret so dirty that he knows he never will get rid of it. (Shakespeare knew this and tried to say it, but he said it just as badly as anyone ever said it. 'All the perfumes of Arabia' makes you think of all the perfumes of Arabia and nothing more. It is the trouble with all metaphors where human behavior is concerned. People are not ships, chess men, flowers, race horses, oil paintings, bottles of champagne, excrement, musical instruments or anything else but people. Metaphors are all right to give you an idea.)
”
”
John O'Hara (BUtterfield 8)
“
I hear the shatter of my heart. I hear that sound from long ago when I broke the bottle of that expensive champagne when Caleb left. But this time around, the sound is like a gunshot, more jarring and deafening. It’s the sound of my castle falling through the air and crashing to the ground.
”
”
Saffron A. Kent (The Unrequited)
“
You blind me, my dear, with your fire. Carefully controlled, directed only into the outlets you allow, but otherwise left to boil beneath the surface. You're like a bottle of fine champagne, yearning to be opened. Year after year, the pressure building slowly, with no release. And ever since I met you, all I could think was what it would take to make... you... pop.
”
”
Jordan L. Hawk (Widdershins (Whyborne & Griffin, #1))
“
Cases of champagne and scotch lay broken in the street, and everyone I saw had a bottle. They were screaming and dancing, and in the middle of the crowd a giant Swede wearing a blue jockstrap was blowing long blasts on a trumpet.
”
”
Hunter S. Thompson (The Rum Diary)
“
arrested me, and he stood by civilly, holding a half-pint champagne bottle (medical comforts) with the candle stuck in it. To my question he said Mr. Kurtz had painted this—in this very station more than a year ago—while waiting for means to go to his trading-post. 'Tell me, pray,' said I, 'who is this Mr. Kurtz?
”
”
Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness)
“
It was a still night, tinted with the promise of dawn. A crescent moon was just setting. Ankh-Morpork, largest city in the lands around the Circle Sea, slept.
That statement is not really true On the one hand, those parts of the city which normally concerned themselves with, for example, selling vegetables, shoeing horses, carving exquisite small jade ornaments, changing money and making tables, on the whole, slept. Unless they had insomnia. Or had got up in the night, as it might be, to go to the lavatory. On the other hand, many of the less law-abiding citizens were wide awake and, for instance, climbing through windows that didn’t belong to them, slitting throats, mugging one another, listening to loud music in smoky cellars and generally having a lot more fun. But most of the animals were asleep, except for the rats. And the bats, too, of course. As far as the insects were concerned…
The point is that descriptive writing is very rarely entirely accurate and during the reign of Olaf Quimby II as Patrician of Ankh some legislation was passed in a determined attempt to put a stop to this sort of thing and introduce some honesty into reporting. Thus, if a legend said of a notable hero that “all men spoke of his prowess” any bard who valued his life would add hastily “except for a couple of people in his home village who thought he was a liar, and quite a lot of other people who had never really heard of him.” Poetic simile was strictly limited to statements like “his mighty steed was as fleet as the wind on a fairly calm day, say about Force Three,” and any loose talk about a beloved having a face that launched a thousand ships would have to be backed by evidence that the object of desire did indeed look like a bottle of champagne.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (The Light Fantastic (Discworld, #2; Rincewind, #2))
“
French women know one can go far with a great haircut, a bottle of champagne, and a divine perfume.
”
”
Mireille Guiliano (French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure)
“
I didn’t win a championship, but I did pop some champagne bottles—and a few locks. Why bother training when you can just steal the trophy?
”
”
Jarod Kintz (This Book is Not for Sale)
“
Outside it was startlingly cold, clear, moonless night. The stars shimmered overhead like splinters of exploded champagne bottles.
”
”
Humphrey Lyttelton (It Just Occurred to Me?: The Reminiscences & Thoughts of Chairman Humph)
“
The champagne bottle knocks against the marble kitchen counter, making me jump. I glance at Jack, hoping he won’t have noticed how nervous I am. He catches me looking and smiles. ‘Perfect,’ he
”
”
B.A. Paris (Behind Closed Doors)
“
My poor Eunice looked so tired when she huffed off the bus with her many bags that I nearly tackled her in a rejuvenating embrace, but I was careful not to make a scene, waving my roses and champagne at the armed men to prove that I had enough Credit to afford Retail, and then kissed her passionately on one cheek (she smelled of flight and moisturizer), then on the straight, thin, oddly non-Asian nose, then the other cheek, then back to the nose, then once more the first cheek, following the curve of freckles backward and forward, marking her nose like a bridge to be crossed twice. The champagne bottle fell out of my hands, but, whatever futuristic garbage it was made of, it didn't break.
”
”
Gary Shteyngart (Super Sad True Love Story)
“
I intend to die with a bottle of champagne by my bed. I'll drink a toast to the fact that, despite everything, I was able to experience the singular adventure of being born, living and one day disappearing into the darkness once again.
”
”
Henning Mankell (The Troubled Man (Kurt Wallander, #10))
“
She quickly realized she had an affinity for the older books and their muted scents of past dinners and foreign countries, the tea and chocolate stains coloring the phrases. You could never be certain what you would find in a book that has spent time with someone else. As she has rifled through the pages looking for defects, she had discovered an entrance ticket to Giverny, a receipt for thirteen bottles of champagne, a to-do list that included, along with groceries and dry cleaning, the simple reminder, 'buy a gun.' Bits of life tucked like stowaways in between the chapters. Sometimes she couldn't decide which story she was most drawn to.
”
”
Erica Bauermeister (Joy for Beginners)
“
When I came out, Jackson was laying out a few things on the bed.
"What are you doing?"
He smiled sheepishly and pointed out a few candles, a bottle of some pinkish liquid, and a bottle of what I could only assume was champagne. "I thought I'd get everything ready so that when we came back after dinner, there'd be nothing to ruin the flow."
"Oh." Flow? What was this supposed to be, the virgin pipeline? "Good thinking.
”
”
S.L. Naeole (Gossamer (Faeble, #1))
“
I turn and I walk my tray to the conveyor and I drop it on the belt and I start to walk out of the Dining Hall. As I head through the Glass Corridor separating the men and women, I see Lilly sitting alone at a table. She looks up at me and she smiles and our eyes meet and I smile back. She looks down and I stop walking and I stare at her. She looks up and she smiles again. She is as beautiful a girl as I have ever seen. Her eyes, her lips, her teeth, her hair, her skin. The black circles beneath her eyes, the scars I can see on her wrists, the ridiculous clothes she wears that are ten sizes too big, the sense of sadness and pain she wears that is even bigger. I stand and I stare at her, just stare stare stare. Men walk past me and other women look at me and LIlly doesn’t understand what I’m doing or why I’m doing it and she’s blushing and it’s beautiful. I stand there and I stare. I stare because I know where I am going I’m not going to see any beauty. They don’t sell crack in Mansions or fancy Department Stores and you don’t go to luxury Hotels or Country Clubs to smoke it. Strong, cheap liquor isn’t served in five-star Restaurants or Champagne Bars and it isn’t sold in gourmet Groceries or boutique Liquor stores. I’m going to go to a horrible place in a horrible neighborhood run by horrible people providing product for the worst Society has to offer. There will be no beauty there, nothing even resembling beauty. There will be Dealers and Addicts and Criminals and Whores and Pimps and Killers and Slaves. There will be drugs and liquor and pipes and bottles and smoke and vomit and blood and human rot and human decay and human disintegration. I have spent much of my life in these places. When I leave here I will fond one of the and I will stay there until I die. Before I do, however, I want one last look at something beautiful. I want one last look so that I have something to hold in my mind while I’m dying, so that when I take my last breath I will be able to think of something that will make me smile, so that in the midst of the horror I can hold on to some shred of humanity.
”
”
James Frey
“
The CO2 has to come out, which it does by forming bubbles. Now, champagne is pressurized to six times the atmospheric pressure on earth at sea level, enough to propel a popped champagne cork faster than 30 miles an hour. Lesson: letting the cork shoot out of a bottle when you open it is both tacky and dangerous.
”
”
Adam Rogers (Proof: The Science of Booze)
“
Calvin clears his throat. “Do you have anything to drink?”
Booze. Right. This is the perfect situation for some booze. I jump up, and he laughs, awkwardly. “I should have thought to get champagne or something.”
“You bought the dinner,” I remind him. “Obviously the champagne was on my list and I dropped the ball.”
Pulling a bottle of vodka from the freezer, I set it on the counter and then realize I have nothing to mix it with. And I finished the last beer the other night.
“I have vodka.”
He smiles valiantly. “Straight-up vodka it is.”
“It’s Stoli.”
“Straight-up mediocre vodka it is,” he amends with a cheeky wink.
His phone buzzes, and it sets off a weird, giddy reaction in my chest. We both have full lives beyond this apartment, which remain complete mysteries to each other. One difference between us is that Calvin likely doesn’t care about my life outside of this. Yet I care intensely about his. Having him here feels like finding the key to unlock a mysterious chest that’s been sitting in the corner of my bedroom for a year.
Buzz. Buzz.
Looking up, I meet his eyes. They’re wide, almost as if he’s not sure whether to answer.
“You can get it,” I assure him. “It’s okay.”
His face darkens with a flush. “I . . . don’t think I should.”
“It’s your phone! Of course it’s okay to answer it.”
“It’s not . . .”
Buzz. Buzz.
Unless, maybe, it’s some Mafia drug lord and if he answers his ruse is up and I’ll kick him out. Or—gasp—maybe it’s a girlfriend calling?
Why had this not occurred to me?
Buzz. Buzz.
“Oh my God. Do you have a girlfriend?”
He looks horrified. “What? Of course not.”
Buzz. Buzz.
Holy shit, how long until his voicemail puts us out of our misery?
“. . . Boyfriend?”
“I don’t—” he starts, smiling through a wince. “It’s not.”
“ ‘Not’?”
“My phone isn’t ringing.”
I stare at him, bewildered.
His blush deepens. “It’s not a phone.”
When he says this, I know he’s right. It doesn’t have the right rhythm to be a phone.
I lift the vodka to my lips and chug straight from the bottle. The buzzing has the exact rhythm of my vibrator . . . the one I tucked beneath that cushion on the couch days ago.
I’m going to need to be pretty drunk to deal with this.
”
”
Christina Lauren (Roomies)
“
Music is when mind and body go on holiday and the soul pops open a bottle of champagne.
”
”
Goldie Nanwani (Thoughts Translated)
“
Between 1908 and 1965, Winston Churchill drank 42,000 bottles of champagne.
”
”
John Lloyd (1,411 QI Facts To Knock You Sideways)
“
Do you love Edna?’. ‘Of course!’ he announced, wildly waving a bottle of champagne in the air, ‘…whoever Edna is.
”
”
Mrs. Stephen Fry (How To Have An Almost Perfect Marriage)
“
To travel across Spain and finally to reach Barcelona is like drinking a respectable red wine and finishing up with a bottle of champagne.
”
”
James A. Michener (Iberia)
“
The closest I can come to describing how I felt at that moment was I was sentient champagne. I loved the feeling of being exposed to the air, fizzing over my bottle’s edge.
”
”
Megan Giddings (Lakewood)
“
Her place already was luxurious, with a bowling alley where the pins were bottles of chilled champagne,
”
”
Erik Larson (The Devil in the White City)
“
An unfinished bottle of champagne found in an old cupboard with all the sparkle gone.
”
”
Graham Greene (Travels with My Aunt)
“
Beba moved away for a moment and observed the scene. Standing in the water up to his waist, a young man in wide trousers, with a little waistcoat pulled over his naked torso and a turban on his head, was gazing in reverence at a little old lady, in the shape of a horizontal letter S, wearing child's swimming costume with the Teletubbies printed on it, floating on a lounger. The old lady resembled a hen, while the young man looked like a hero out of A Thousand and One Nights.
'Shall we order another bottle of champagne?' suggested Beba.
”
”
Dubravka Ugrešić (Baba Yaga Laid an Egg (Myths))
“
Her bladder disagreed. It increased the pressure and reminded her of all of that champagne she’d drunk and those bottles of water that had closed out the night. Oh God, she really had to
”
”
Jasmine Guillory (The Wedding Date (The Wedding Date, #1))
“
She dabbed at her eyes. ‘You’d be bored, Henry. An unfinished bottle of champagne found in an old cupboard with all the sparkle gone …’ The jaded phrase was worthy of a Haymarket author.
”
”
Graham Greene (Travels With My Aunt)
“
Instead of expensive fish eggs and stinky cheeses, Jay had packed Doritos and chicken soft tacos—Violet’s favorites. And instead of grapes, he brought Oreos.
He knew her way too well.
Violet grinned as he pulled out two clear plastic cups and a bottle of sparkling cider. She giggled. “What? No champagne?”
He shrugged, pouring a little of the bubbling apple juice into each of the flimsy cups. “I sorta thought that a DUI might ruin the mood.” He lifted his cup and clinked—or rather tapped—it against hers. “Cheers.” He watched her closely as she took a sip.
”
”
Kimberly Derting (Desires of the Dead (The Body Finder, #2))
“
Billy Pilgrim padded downstairs on his blue and ivory feet. He went into the kitchen, where the moonlight called his attention to a half a bottle of champagne on the kitchen table, all that was left from the reception in the tent. Some had stoppered it again. "Drink me," it seemed to say.
So Billy uncorked it with this thumbs. It didn't make a pop. The champagne was dead. So it goes.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Slaughterhouse-Five)
“
I have yet to meet a filmmaker who upon seeing her footage for the first time, didn't want to simultaneously bust open a bottle of Champagne, and move to another country to take a job as a bike courier. This is normal.
”
”
Roberta Marie Munroe
“
I think relationships are a lot like a champagne. This bottle here" - I lift it and por us each a little more - " it's crazy expensive. My dad got all of us Vooper kids a vintage from the year we were born for our twenty-first birthdays and told us to save it for the right time. We always interpreted that as save it for a special occasion. Engagements. Weddings. Celebrations. Baseball, if you're my brother." I hold the neck of the bottle, study the label. "But my dad didn't say save it for a special occasion. He said save it for the right time. It's a crucial differenc? Here? With me? he asks, his voice rough.
"Apparently. And that's sort of my point." I set the bottle down and look at him. " I don't think you can plan for the right time. Or the right woman. As far as timing's concerned, maybe sometimes you've got to make it the right time and simply trust it's the right woman.
”
”
Lauren Layne (To Sir, with Love)
“
That evening I glanced back at the TV as Bella poured half a bottle of the finest brandy into her bowl of cake batter, I waited for tinselly anticipation to land like snowflakes all around me, but I felt nothing. Even when she produced what she described as 'a winter landscape for European cheeses', sprigged with holly and a frosty snow scene, I failed to get my fix.
'Ooh, this is a juicy one,' she said, biting seductively at a maraschino cherry she'd earlier described as 'divinely kitsch'. She swallowed the cherry whole, giggled girlishly and raised a flute of champagne. 'Why have cava when Champagne is sooo much more bubbly? Cheers!' she said, taking a large sip of vintage Krug.
”
”
Sue Watson (Bella's Christmas Bake Off)
“
The air of Paris is quite different from any other. There's something about it which thrills and excites and intoxicates you, and in some strange way makes you want to dance and do all sorts of other silly things. As soon as I get out of the train, it's just as if I had drunk a bottle of champagne. What a time one could have surrounded by artists! How happy those lucky people must be, the great men who have made a name in a city like Paris! What a wonderful life they have!
”
”
Guy de Maupassant (Boule de Suif (21 contes))
“
Have some champagne, quick,” Bunny said. “It’s going flat.” “Where is it?” “In the teapot.” “Mr. Hatch would be beside himself if he saw a bottle on the porch,” said Charles. They were playing Go Fish: it was the only card game that Bunny knew.
”
”
Donna Tartt (The Secret History)
“
champagne, n.
You appear at the foot of the bed with a bottle of champagne, and I have no idea why. I search my mind desperately for an occasion I've forgotten - is this some obscure anniversary or, even worse, a not-so-obscure one? Then I think you have something to tell me, some good news to share, but your smile is silent, cryptic. I sit up in bed, ask you what's going on, and you shake your head, as if to say that nothing's going on, as if to pretend that we usually start our Wednesday mornings with champagne.
You touch the bottle to my leg - I feel the cool condensation and the glass, the fact that the bottle must have been sleeping all night in the refrigerator without me noticing. You have long-stemmed glasses in you other hand, and you place them on the nightstand, beside the uncommenting clock, the box of kleenex, the tumbler of water.
"The thing about champagne," you say, unfailing the cork, unwinding its wire restraint, "is that it is the ultimate associative object. Every time you open a bottle of champagne, it's a celebration, so there's no better way of starting a celebration than opening a bottle of champagne. Every time you sip it, you're sipping from all those other celebrations. The joy accumulates over time."
You pop the cork. The bubbles rise. I feel some of the spray on my skin. You pour.
"But why?" I ask as you hand me my glass.
You raise yours and ask, "Why not? What better way to start the day?"
We drink a toast to that.
”
”
David Levithan (The Lover's Dictionary)
“
Now, champagne is pressurized to six times the atmospheric pressure on earth at sea level, enough to propel a popped champagne cork faster than 30 miles an hour. Lesson: letting the cork shoot out of a bottle when you open it is both tacky and dangerous.
”
”
Adam Rogers (Proof: The Science of Booze)
“
A breakfast recorded by the Duke of Wellington consisted of ‘two pigeons and three beefsteaks, three parts of a bottle of Mozelle, a glass of champagne, two glasses of port and a glass of brandy’ – and this was when he was feeling a little under the weather.
”
”
Bill Bryson (At Home: A Short History of Private Life)
“
I was trying to contain a surprise bubble of exultation bobbing in the anger I have always tried to keep bottled up. Fury lived inside me under pressure. Now it all started going off inside my body like popped corks; the rage-champagne and feral glee were foaming out.
”
”
Louise Erdrich (The Sentence)
“
Jucikas went on to explain that sabering champagne is not about brute force; it's about studying the bottle and hitting the weakest spot with graceful precision. Done correctly, this requires very little pressure—you essentially let the bottle break itself. You hack the bottle's design flaw.
”
”
Christopher Wylie (Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America)
“
Drink a bottle of cheap champagne. Mix with orange juice. A large Glenmorangie. Milk and blackish toast. Half a bottle of Blue Nun. Budweiser. Budweiser. Go to church. Say I do etc. Budweiser. Murphy’s. Jameson. Budweiser. Stella. Stella. Cake. Stella. Jameson. Stella. Vodka and orange. Vodka and black. Speech, speech. Vodka. Vodka. Double Jameson. Double vodka. Double vodka. Get carry-outs of barley wine. Say goodbye to aunties. Uncles. Mothers etc. Stop car on M18. Vomit. Sleep. Dream of dim-lit hallways and a black door. Wake up between Scarborough and Robin Hood’s Bay. Her not saying much. Driving.
”
”
Dean Lilleyman (Billy and the Devil)
“
Then I began writing. It was about a German aviator in World War I. Baron Von Himmlen. He flew a red Fokker. And he was not popular with his fellow fliers. He didn't talk to them. He drank alone and he flew alone. He didn't bother with women, although they all loved him. He was above that. He was too busy. He was busy shooting Allied plans out of the sky. Already he had shot down 110 and he war wasn't over. His red Fokker, which he referred to as the "October Bird of Death," was known everywhere. Even the enemy ground troops knew him as he often flew low over them, taking their gunfire and laughing, dropping bottles of champagne to them suspended from little parachutes. Baron Von Himmlen was never attacked by less than five Allied planes at a time. He was an ugly man with scars on his face, but he was beautiful if you looked long enough -- it was in the eyes, his style, his courage, his fierce aloneness.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Ham on Rye)
“
Quite as agreeable was the arrival of a fresh supply of red-currant fool, and as this had been heralded a few minutes before by a loud pop from the butler's pantry, which looked on to the lawn, Miss Mapp began to waver in her belief that there was no champagne in it, particularly as it would not have suited the theory by which she accounted for the Major's unwonted good humour, and her suggestion that the pop they had all heard so clearly was the opening of a bottle of stone ginger-beer was not delivered with conviction. To make sure, however, she took one more sip of the new supply, and, irradiated with smiles, made a great concession.
"I believe I was wrong," she said. "There is something in it beyond yolk of egg and cream. Oh, there's Boon; he will tell us."
She made a seductive face at Boon, and beckoned to him.
"Boon, will you think it very inquisitive of me," she asked archly, "if I ask you whether you have put a teeny drop of champagne into this delicious red-currant fool?"
"A bottle and a half, Miss," said Boon morosely, "and half a pint of old brandy. Will you have some more, Miss?"
Miss Mapp curbed her indignation at this vulgar squandering of precious liquids, so characteristic of Poppits. She gave a shrill little laugh.
”
”
E.F. Benson (Miss Mapp (Lucia, #2))
“
We always used to celebrate together at the end of a picture. Clark insisted on it. Maybe we’d include the director, maybe not. It was just a kind of ritual that the two of us had. We would share a bottle of champagne while he read poetry to me, usually the sonnets of Shakespeare. He loved poetry, and read beautifully, with great sensitivity, but he wouldn’t dare let anyone else know it. He was afraid people would think him weak or effeminite and not the tough guy who liked to fish and hunt. I was the only one he trusted. He never wanted me to tell about this, and here I am giving him away, but I never mentioned it while he was alive.
”
”
Myrna Loy
“
But then she met Nick, who told her she was beautiful, and whenever he toucher her, it was as if his touch were actually making her as beautiful as he seemed to believe she was. So why would she deny herself a second piece of mud cake or glass of champagne if Nick was there with the knife or the bottle poised, grinning evilly and saying "You only live once," as if every day were a celebration. Nick had little boy's sweet tooth, and an appreciation of good food, fine wine and beautiful weather; eating and drinking with Nick in hot sunshine was like sex. He made her feel like a well-fed happy cat: plump, sleek, purring with sensual satisfaction.
”
”
Liane Moriarty (What Alice Forgot)
“
Fucking love you,” he murmurs against my lips. “I’ll follow you anywhere, Stevie.” I put that conversation on pause and instead nudge his nose with mine and kiss him once more. “Linds!” he shouts back over his shoulder. “Let’s pop those bottles of champagne! We won the Stanley Cup, and I got my girl back. Now we can celebrate!
”
”
Liz Tomforde (Mile High (Windy City, #1))
“
Champagne, m'lord?'
'Have we got any? One bottle would do. Even a half-bottle.'
Smith's face puckered, as if manfully attempting to force his mind to grapple with a mathematical or philosophical problem of extraordinary complexity. His bearing suggested that he had certainly before heard the word 'champagne' used, if only in some distant, outlandish context; that devotion to his master alone gave him some apprehension of what this question—these ravings, almost—might mean. Nothing good could come of it. This was a disastrous way to talk. That was his unspoken message so far as champagne was concerned. After a long pause, he at last shook his head.
'I doubt if there is any champagne left, m'lord.
”
”
Anthony Powell (A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement (A Dance to the Music of Time, #4-6))
“
From harsh and shrill and clamant, the voices grew blurred and inarticulate. Bad sentences were helped out by worse gestures, and at one table, Scabius could only express himself with his napkin, after the manner of Sir Jolly Jumble in the first part of the Soldier’s Fortune of Otway. Basalissa and Lysistrata tried to pronounce each other’s names, and became very affectionate in the attempt; and Tala, the tragedian, robed in roomy purple and wearing plume and buskin, rose to his feet and with swaying gestures began to recite one of his favourite parts. He got no further than the first line, but repeated it again and again, with fresh accents and intonations each time, and was only silenced by the approach of the asparagus that was being served by satyrs dressed in white muslin.
Clitor and Sodon had a violet struggle over the beautiful Pella, and nearly upset a chandelier. Sophie became very intimate with an empty champagne bottle, swore it had made her enceinte, and ended by having a mock accouchement on the top of the table; and Belamour pretended to be a dog, and pranced from couch to couch on all fours, biting and barking and licking. Mellefont crept about dropping love philtres into glasses. Juventus and Ruella stripped and put on each other’s things, Spelto offered a prize for who ever should come first, and Spelto won it! Tannhäuser, just a little grisé, lay down on the cushions and let Julia do whatever she liked.
”
”
Aubrey Beardsley (Salome/ Under the Hill: Oscar Wilde/Aubrey Beardsley (Creation Classics))
“
Grief is funny like that, how it ebbs and flows from you, it’s not corked like champagne, a bottle that bursts open, fizzes all out until it’s empty. It’s more like a kind of weather. A kind of wind. Sometimes it’s these horrible gusts that you feel undeniably, hurts your ears, makes you close your eyes, chills you right down to your bones, some days it’s a pleasant breeze that blows across your face and it’s neither sad or bad, it’s just some kind of unspeakable tenderness. Some days you feel no breeze, that’s started happening to me—I don’t know how I feel about it yet—not that I don’t think of her, I sort of think I’ll think of her every day for forever, but more that, when I do, it doesn’t necessarily feel like someone’s dropping a crystal vase inside my chest. That’s not to say I don’t still have days where I’m a glassware shop situated somewhere along the San Andreas Fault and there’s an earthquake and things are falling and breaking everywhere, but there was a time where every day felt like the big one California’s waiting for—just total demolition. I suppose it doesn’t feel like total destruction anymore.
”
”
Jessa Hastings (Magnolia Parks: Into the Dark (Magnolia Parks Universe, #5))
“
36 bottles of Amontillado—Duff Gordon’s V.O.; 36 bottles, white wine—Valmur, 1934 [Chablis]; 36 bottles, port—Fonseca, 1912; 36 bottles, claret—Château Léoville Poyferré, 1929; 24 bottles, whisky—Fine Highland Malt; 12 bottles, brandy—Grande Fine Champagne, 1874 [66 years old, same as Churchill]; 36 bottles of champagne—Pommery et Greno, 1926 [Pol Roger, however, remained his favorite].
”
”
Erik Larson (The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz)
“
I always keep one cold, just in case,” Jake said as he uncorked the bottle and took out two crystal flutes, and Joanna smiled with delight at this new bit of insight into Jake’s life—what a wonderful man he was, what an optimist, always to have a bottle of champagne ready, always certain, even after all life had tossed him, that on any normal day life might give him something to celebrate.
”
”
Nancy Thayer (Belonging)
“
Life is hard. And maybe its less hard if you've got someone the in the trenches with you."
"See I want that."
"Just make sure you've got the right person in the trench with you." He said "Because someday you're going to get locked in a bathroom and the wrong person will scream at you the whole time. But the right person will drink a bottle of champagne with you and laugh until you get rescued.
”
”
Ellie Cahill (Save the Secret Date (Cordially Invited #3))
“
Roebuck and Chapman stand behind a seated woman wearing a hospital gown and the bulky steel apparatus on her head. She is pale and crying. The front of her gown is dark with a brownish vomit stain. The skin around her eyes is similarly dark as well as puffy. The eyes themselves appear haunted. Behind her, the men grin. Roebuck pops a champagne bottle and pours Chapman a splash in a Dixie cup. He leans to pour a little for the woman, which stays untouched on the table in front of her. He takes his own swig directly from the bottle. Gloria Flick walks on-screen holding up a sign on which she scrawled WE DID IT! The seated woman stops crying. Eyes glassy and deranged, she looks directly into the camera lens while the researchers go on celebrating. Her face shines with madness as it stretches into a broad, lunatic grin.
”
”
Craig DiLouie (Episode Thirteen)
“
It is not accurate to call [the Bollinger Club dinner] an annual event, because quite often the Club is suspended for some years after each meeting. There is tradition behind the Bollinger; it numbers reigning kings among its past members. At the last dinner, three years ago, a fox had been brought in in a cage and stoned to death with champagne bottles. What an evening that had been! This was the first meeting since then, and from all over Europe old members had rallied for the occasion. For two days they had been pouring into Oxford: epileptic royalty from their villas of exile; uncouth peers from crumbling country seats; smooth young men of uncertain tastes from embassies and legations; illiterate lairds from wet granite hovels in the Highlands; ambitious young barristers and Conservative candidates torn from the London season and the indelicate advances of debutantes; all that was most sonorous of name and title was there for the beano.
”
”
Evelyn Waugh (Decline and Fall)
“
But Waldegrave didn’t simply give up; he challenged the scientists to provide him with an understandable explanation of the role of the Higgs boson, one that would fit on a single piece of paper. He offered a bottle of vintage champagne to whoever came up with the best explanation. Miller and four colleagues managed to cook up an engaging metaphor that was deemed suitable by the science minister. All five got bottles of champagne, and of course the United Kingdom supported the LHC.
”
”
Sean Carroll (The Particle at the End of the Universe: The Hunt for the Higgs Boson and the Discovery of a New World)
“
when Lord Shoreman and Mr. Worthing were dining with me, eight bottles of champagne are entered as having been consumed. Lane. Yes, sir; eight bottles and a pint. Algernon. Why is it that at a bachelor’s establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information. Lane. I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand. Algernon. Good heavens! Is marriage so demoralising as that?
”
”
Oscar Wilde (Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated))
“
Such was the carnival atmosphere that Brenner, her boss, his wife, and a local journalist managed to summon up the courage to walk directly toward the white line of the border crossing—where twenty-eight years ago tanks had famously faced one another—to present the East German guards with bottles of champagne. The guards refused the offer, but they didn’t point their weapons, or bark out warnings. It was a surreal moment as the joyous posse from the Adler walked back to the café and prepared the bar for guests—lots of them.
”
”
Iain MacGregor (Checkpoint Charlie: The Cold War, the Berlin Wall and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth)
“
At her feet, a luminous path lit the way through the grassy field. It was made entirely from glow sticks; each of the radiant lights had been painstakingly set into the ground at perfect intervals, tracing a curved trail that shone through the darkness.
Apparently, Jay had been busy.
Near the water’s edge, at the end of the iridescent pathway and beneath a stand of trees, Jay had set up more than just a picnic. He had created a retreat, an oasis for the two of them.
Violet shook her head, unable to find the words to speak.
He led her closer, and Violet followed, amazed.
Jay had hung more of the luminous glow sticks from the low-hanging branches, so they dangled overhead. They drifted and swayed in the breeze that blew up from the lake.
Beneath the natural canopy of limbs, he had set up two folding lounge chairs and covered them with pillows and blankets.
“I’d planned to use candles, but the wind would’ve blown ‘em out, so I had to improvise.”
“Seriously, Jay? This is amazing.” Violet felt awed. She couldn’t imagine how long it must have taken him.
“I’m glad you like it.”
He led her to one of the chairs and drew her down until she was sitting before he started unpacking the cooler.
She half-expected him to pull out a jar of Beluga caviar, some fancy French cheeses, and Dom Perignon champagne. Maybe even a cluster of grapes to feed to her…one at a time. So when he started laying out their picnic, Violet laughed.
Instead of expensive fish eggs and stinky cheeses, Jay had packed Daritos and chicken soft tacos-Violet’s favorites. And instead of grapes, he brought Oreos.
He knew her way too well.
Violet grinned as he pulled out two clear plastic cups and a bottle of sparkling cider. She giggled. “What? No champagne?”
He shrugged, pouring a little of the bubbling apple juice into each of the flimsy cups. “I sorta thought that a DUI might ruin the mood.” He lifted his cup and clinked-or rather, tapped-it against hers. “Cheers.” He watched her closely as she took a sip.
For several moments, they were silent. The lights swayed above them, creating shadows that danced over them. The park was peaceful, asleep, as the lake’s waters lapped the shore. Across from them, lights from the houses along the water’s edge cast rippling reflections on the shuddering surface. All of these things transformed the ordinary park into a romantic winter rendezvous.
”
”
Kimberly Derting (Desires of the Dead (The Body Finder, #2))
“
Why don't you make everybody an Alpha Double Plus while you're about it?"
Mustapha Mond laughed. "Because we have no wish to have our throats cut," he answered. "We believe in happiness and stability. A society of Alphas couldn't fail to be unstable and miserable. Imagine a factory staffed by Alphas–that is to say by separate and unrelated individuals of good heredity and conditioned so as to be capable (within limits) of making a free choice and assuming responsibilities. Imagine it!" he repeated.
The Savage tried to imagine it, not very successfully.
"It's an absurdity. An Alpha-decanted, Alpha-conditioned man would go mad if he had to do Epsilon Semi-Moron work–go mad, or start smashing things up. Alphas can be completely socialized–but only on condition that you make them do Alpha work. Only an Epsilon can be expected to make Epsilon sacrifices, for the good reason that for him they aren't sacrifices; they're the line of least resistance. His conditioning has laid down rails along which he's got to run. He can't help himself; he's foredoomed. Even after decanting, he's still inside a bottle–an invisible bottle of infantile and embryonic fixations. Each one of us, of course," the Controller meditatively continued, "goes through life inside a bottle. But if we happen to be Alphas, our bottles are, relatively speaking, enormous. We should suffer acutely if we were confined in a narrower space. You cannot pour upper-caste champagne-surrogate into lower-caste bottles. It's obvious theoretically. But it has also been proved in actual practice. The result of the Cyprus experiment was convincing."
"What was that?" asked the Savage.
Mustapha Mond smiled. "Well, you can call it an experiment in rebottling if you like. It began in A.F. 473. The Controllers had the island of Cyprus cleared of all its existing inhabitants and re-colonized with a specially prepared batch of twenty-two thousand Alphas. All agricultural and industrial equipment was handed over to them and they were left to manage their own affairs. The result exactly fulfilled all the theoretical predictions. The land wasn't properly worked; there were strikes in all the factories; the laws were set at naught, orders disobeyed; all the people detailed for a spell of low-grade work were perpetually intriguing for high-grade jobs, and all the people with high-grade jobs were counter-intriguing at all costs to stay where they were. Within six years they were having a first-class civil war. When nineteen out of the twenty-two thousand had been killed, the survivors unanimously petitioned the World Controllers to resume the government of the island. Which they did. And that was the end of the only society of Alphas that the world has ever seen."
The Savage sighed, profoundly.
"The optimum population," said Mustapha Mond, "is modelled on the iceberg–eight-ninths below the water line, one-ninth above."
"And they're happy below the water line?"
"Happier than above it.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (Brave New World)
“
He gently tugged her panties to the side and, watching her watch him, delivered a kiss that was almost as hot as the big ball of fire raging between them.
"God, don't stop," she moaned, and, man of big words, he did not. Using his tongue, his teeth, teasing and tempting, he set a delicious pace that had her pressing against him. Harder and faster, he launched an all-out attack until breathing became nonexistent.
He got her body so primed it was humming and, in an embarrassing amount of time, he had her careening toward the finish line.
The finish line was good. The finish line was great. She hadn't crossed that line in a really, really, really long time. It almost pained her to stop, but Mila was a team player and determined that, when those champagne bottles exploded, they'd fly high together.
"Come here." She fisted her hand in his shirt, yanking him forward and his shirt up and over his head. She made quick work of his belt and jeans, then slid her hands down the front to his--- my word, indeed.
"Mi," he breathed, so she did it again, only this time beneath his BVDs. Pushing his jeans around his ankles with one hand, she kept up a steady pace with the other.
"Slow down," he groaned, but she noticed he didn't make a move to stop her, instead pushing harder into her palm. "One more stroke, and it's game over, Buttercup. I've waited too long to have it end in three seconds."
She gave a little squeeze. "Big words go both ways."
Okay, more than a little squeeze, but he didn't seem to mind. His eyes darkened. His expression dazed.
”
”
Marina Adair (The Café Between Pumpkin and Pie (Moonbright, Maine #3))
“
It was ten at night and everyone had gone home. I trudged up the dark stairway to clean out my desk. There was no sadness or nostalgia, only disgust that I’d wasted so much time on unnecessary labor when I could have been sleeping and feeling nothing. I’d been stupid to believe that employment would add value to my life. I found a shopping bag in the break room and packed up my coffee mug, the spare change of clothes I kept in my desk drawer along with a few pairs of high heels, panty hose, a push-up bra, some makeup, a stash of cocaine I hadn’t used in a year. I thought about stealing something from the gallery—the Larry Clark photo hanging in Natasha’s office, or the paper cutter. I settled on a bottle of champagne—a lukewarm, and therefore appropriate, consolation.
”
”
Ottessa Moshfegh (My Year of Rest and Relaxation)
“
I wish I could blame the solar storm
that blitzed the earth with electromagnetic rays,
rerouted several commercial airlines,
and caused all the geese to mistakenly fly west,
the secret compass needles in their heads
playing spin the bottle over a rowdy Pacific.
Satellite communications were disrupted,
electric eels in Peru forgot how to sing,
and for a few seconds all the iPhones in the world
flickered to black, during which time
everyone raised their eyes and noticed
moths shivering like tiny chandeliers.
The truth is your glance shortcuts every traffic light
in my heart and now no one’s in charge,
I’m accelerating down the expressway
of a tuba’s gold dream. With one outburst
from your hair, I sputter like a firefly drowning
in champagne. Just imagining the charged particles
of your lips colliding with mine
and I’m watching the northern lights,
those bodies flaring across midwinter sheets of sky
”
”
Katherine Rauk
“
My parents died one after the other my junior year of college—first my dad from cancer, then my mother from pills and alcohol six weeks later. All of this, the tragedy of my past, came reeling back with great force that night I woke up in the supply closet at Ducat for the last time. It was ten at night and everyone had gone home. I trudged up the dark stairway to clean out my desk. There was no sadness or nostalgia, only disgust that I’d wasted so much time on unnecessary labor when I could have been sleeping and feeling nothing. I’d been stupid to believe that employment would add value to my life. I found a shopping bag in the break room and packed up my coffee mug, the spare change of clothes I kept in my desk drawer along with a few pairs of high heels, panty hose, a push-up bra, some makeup, a stash of cocaine I hadn’t used in a year. I thought about stealing something from the gallery—the Larry Clark photo hanging in Natasha’s office, or the paper cutter. I settled on a bottle of champagne—a lukewarm, and therefore appropriate, consolation.
”
”
Ottessa Moshfegh (My Year of Rest and Relaxation)
“
He carefully poured the juice into a bowl and rinsed the scallops to remove any sand caught between the tender white meat and the firmer coral-colored roe, wrapped around it like a socialite's fur stole.
Mayur is the kind of cook (my kind), who thinks the chef should always have a drink in hand. He was making the scallops with champagne custard, so naturally the rest of the bottle would have to disappear before dinner. He poured a cup of champagne into a small pot and set it to reduce on the stove. Then he put a sugar cube in the bottom of a wide champagne coupe (Lalique, service for sixteen, direct from the attic on my mother's last visit). After a bit of a search, he found the crème de violette in one of his shopping bags and poured in just a dash. He topped it up with champagne and gave it a swift stir.
"To dinner in Paris," he said, glass aloft.
'To the chef," I answered, dodging swiftly out of the way as he poured the reduced champagne over some egg yolks and began whisking like his life depended on it.
"Do you have fish stock?"
"Nope."
"Chicken?"
"Just cubes. Are you sure that will work?"
"Sure. This is the Mr. Potato Head School of Cooking," he said. "Interchangeable parts. If you don't have something, think of what that ingredient does, and attach another one."
I counted, in addition to the champagne, three other bottles of alcohol open in the kitchen. The boar, rubbed lovingly with a paste of cider vinegar, garlic, thyme, and rosemary, was marinating in olive oil and red wine. It was then to be seared, deglazed with hard cider, roasted with whole apples, and finished with Calvados and a bit of cream. Mayur had his nose in a small glass of the apple liqueur, inhaling like a fugitive breathing the air of the open road.
As soon as we were all assembled at the table, Mayur put the raw scallops back in their shells, spooned over some custard, and put them ever so briefly under the broiler- no more than a minute or two. The custard formed a very thin skin with one or two peaks of caramel. It was, quite simply, heaven.
The pork was presented neatly sliced, restaurant style, surrounded with the whole apples, baked to juicy, sagging perfection.
”
”
Elizabeth Bard (Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes)
“
How are you off for drink? We have got everything in the world on board here. Can you catch?’ and almost immediately a large bottle of champagne was thrown from the gunboat to the shore. It fell in the waters of the Nile, but happily where a gracious Providence decreed them to be shallow and the bottom soft. I nipped into the water up to my knees, and reaching down seized the precious gift which we bore in triumph back to our mess.
This kind of war was full of fascinating thrills. It was not like the Great War. Nobody expected to be killed. Here and there in every regiment or battalion, half a dozen, a score, at the worst thirty or fourty, would pay forfeit; but to the great mass of those who took part in the little wars of Britain in those vanished and light-hearted days, this was only a sporting element in a splendid game. Most of us were fated to se a war where the hazards were reversed, where death was the general expectation and severe wounds were counted as lucky escapes, where whole brigades were shorn away under the steel flail of artillery and machine-guns, where the survivors of one tornado knew that they would certainly be consumed in the next or the next after that.
Everything depends upon the scale of events. We young men who lay down to sleep that night within three miles of 60,000 well-armed fanatical Dervishes, expecting every moment their violent onset or inrush and sure of fighting at latest with the dawn – we may perhaps be pardoned if we thought we were at grips with real war.
”
”
Winston S. Churchill (A Roving Commission; My Early Life (1930))
“
I do not like to see young Christians with shoulders that slope like a champagne bottle.
”
”
Theodore Roosevelt (Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography)
“
But I got caught up in the life. Celeste, my audience, sitting back with her feet crossed at the ankles, knees closed, slim fingers curled around a flute of champagne (yes, champagne—this was how exclusive the shop was; they served champagne while you tried on clothes), her entire face lit with delight when I’d walked out wearing that gown. The instant I did, she threw out a graceful hand, saying I simply had to have it, that it was made for me, and I forgot who I was, where I came from, where I would go when I went home, and bought it. But it was ridiculous. I’d have nowhere to wear it. Still, I liked the idea of just owning it and decided that, maybe, on occasion, I’d make myself a fabulous dinner, buy myself a good bottle of champagne, put it on, and share my dinner with Memphis, pretending I was back in this life. That this was me. That might be a weird thing to do, but I figured it also would be fun.
”
”
Kristen Ashley (Heaven and Hell (Heaven and Hell, #1))
“
We each filled about a hundred bottles every fall, using mostly the unpasteurized juice of Russet, Golden Delicious, and New York Imperial apples from a nearby farm. After allowing the cider to ferment for a couple of weeks in five-gallon jugs, we drew it carefully into Champagne bottles salvaged from a friend’s restaurant in New York, corked the bottles, and secured each cork with a metal wire. The cider rested in my cellar over the winter—undergoing a second fermentation to produce a hard, sparkling beverage. Every bottle was different. Sometimes it came out just right: a golden color, with beautiful, sparkling bubbles; a clean, dry, slightly sweet taste of apple, honey, and apricot, with the scent of apple blossoms and honeysuckle. At other times it was hard and rough, with such a high carbon dioxide content that the corks, despite being secured with wire, burst out of the bottles during the peak of the second fermentation. Precious cider was lost on the floor and walls of the cellar. Opening a bottle became so unpredictable that after a few sticky showers in the kitchen and dining room, Gloria insisted that I perform that chore outside.
”
”
Jacques Pépin (The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen)
“
I burst like a shaken bottle of champagne to the sound of Mallory saying my name, the feel of uneven wood beneath my fingertips and my lover buried inside me.
”
”
Nash Summers (Arrows Through Archer)
“
Maeven was still watching me, her fingers curled around a champagne bottle.
”
”
Jennifer Estep (Kill the Queen (Crown of Shards, #1))
“
Aye, be on the lookout for me,” Krude said standing up after Memphis and Nyla left our table. “For what now, nigga?” Journey asked. “I’m about to go grab a few bottles of the champagne and put them in my car,” Krude answered. “I don’t want to look like I’m stealing.
”
”
Aubry J. (A Savage Resolution: A New Year's Anthology)
“
After dinner, I popped open a bottle of champagne and we drank from cracked flutes while watching the last of mother nature’s brilliant display. Halfway through the bottle, we made love to the sounds of our popping campfire, the distant rumbling waves, and a breeze rustling overhead palm fronds.
”
”
Matthew Rief (Pursuit in the Keys (Florida Keys Adventure #18))
“
A bottle of Champagne, several rounds of shots, and a handful of hours later, all three of us are sitting in my secret garden, drinking margaritas Sadie whipped up and eating the chocolate cake straight from the container with forks.
”
”
Morgan Elizabeth (The Distraction (Springbrook Hills, #1))
“
I can have the paperwork sent over to you first thing in the morning. I gotta tell you. I never thought that you would do it, but you surprised me, I knew you could do it. Congratulations,” he said as he reached into his miniature fridge behind him, pulling out a bottle of champagne. He popped the cork, and it ruptured all over the carpet.
”
”
Jazz E (Winning A Hitta's Heart: The Victory Was You (Winning A Hitta’s Heart: The Victory Was You Book 1))
“
On October 23, the Unification Board rejected the union’s petition, refusing to grant the raise. If any hearings had been held on the matter, Rearden had not known about it. He had not been consulted, informed or notified. He had waited, volunteering no questions. On October 25, the newspapers of the country, controlled by the same men who controlled the Board, began a campaign of commiseration with the workers of Rearden Steel. They printed stories about the refusal of the wage raise, omitting any mention of who had refused it or who held the exclusive legal power to refuse, as if counting on the public to forget legal technicalities under a barrage of stories implying that an employer was the natural cause of all miseries suffered by employees. They printed a story describing the hardships of the workers of Rearden Steel under the present rise in the cost of their living—next to a story describing Hank Rearden’s profits, of five years ago. They printed a story on the plight of a Rearden worker’s wife trudging from store to store in a hopeless quest for food—next to a story about a champagne bottle broken over somebody’s head at a drunken party given by an unnamed steel tycoon at a fashionable hotel; the steel tycoon had been Orren Boyle, but the story mentioned no names. “Inequalities still exist among us,” the newspapers were saying, “and cheat us of the benefits of our enlightened age.” “Privations have worn the nerves and temper of the people. The situation is reaching the danger point. We fear an outbreak of violence.” “We fear an outbreak of violence,” the newspapers kept repeating.
”
”
Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
“
Esther Ross’s moment was at hand. Despite the time-honored tradition of christening ships with champagne, Esther swung two bottles suspended from the vessel by a long cord and wrapped in red, white, and blue ribbons. One was indeed the traditional bottle of champagne—described by the New York Times as “American champagne from Ohio”—but the other was “a quart of the first water that flowed over Roosevelt Dam in Arizona.” As the bottles broke against the starboard bow, Esther cried out, “I name thee Arizona!
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Walter R. Borneman (Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona)
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The woman sitting next to Gigi has ordered a plate of French fries and an entire bottle of champagne just for herself. Not all superheroes wear capes, Gigi thinks.
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Elin Hilderbrand (The Five-Star Weekend)
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WHITE PEACH AND BLUEBERRY SALAD WITH ROSE SYRUP
Salade de Pêches Blanches à la Rose
It's nearly impossible to improve on the white peaches in Provence, but I did find a bottle of locally made rose syrup in the boulangerie that piqued my interest. This makes a quick but surprisingly elegant dessert for guests.
4 perfectly ripe white peaches, cut into 1/2-inch slices
1 cup blueberries
1-2 teaspoons rose syrup
Combine all the ingredients.
Serves 4.
Tip: Rose syrup is available online and from some specialty supermarkets. A small bottle will keep forever in the fridge. You can use it to make champagne cocktails or raspberry smoothies, or to flavor a yogurt cake. You may find rosewater, which is unsweetened (and very concentrated), at a Middle Eastern grocery. Use it sparingly (a few drops plus 1 or 2 teaspoons of sugar for this recipe), otherwise your fruit salad will taste like soap.
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Elizabeth Bard (Picnic in Provence: A Memoir with Recipes)
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The whole platform was set up with pillows and soft blankets and illuminated by a dozen hurricane lamps with flickering candles inside. Exquisite arrangements of flowers complimented the candles, and near the pillows, a dessert tray was all set up for the four of us. There was even a bottle of Champagne chilling in an ice-bucket. They'd thought of everything. "Are you guys for real right now?" I gaped, holding onto the edge of the platform with my fingers.
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Tate James (Kate (Madison Kate, #4))
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if the goal of charity is to help those in need, you certainly wouldn’t know it based on the degree of waste and decadence present. There is something fundamentally wrong when people are eating extravagant meals, wearing $5,000 suits, and drinking $800 bottles of champagne while a guy on stage preaches about global starvation and poverty. This is particularly troubling in New York City, a place with about 60,000 homeless on the street each night.
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Peter Joseph (The New Human Rights Movement: Reinventing the Economy to End Oppression)