“
I need dating advice. Fast...Julian, how did you meet your wife?"
Julian shrugged. "My brother the sex god cursed me into a book for two thousand years. Grace got drunk on her birthday and summoned me out of it."
Vane rolled his eyes. "That's useless. Kyrian? What about you?"
"I woke up handcuffed to Amanda."
Vane could work with that. "So I need to get a set of handcuffs?
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Night Play (Dark-Hunter, #5; Were-Hunter, #1))
“
Hitch: making rules about drinking can be the sign of an alcoholic,' as Martin Amis once teasingly said to me. (Adorno would have savored that, as well.) Of course, watching the clock for the start-time is probably a bad sign, but here are some simple pieces of advice for the young. Don't drink on an empty stomach: the main point of the refreshment is the enhancement of food. Don't drink if you have the blues: it's a junk cure. Drink when you are in a good mood. Cheap booze is a false economy. It's not true that you shouldn't drink alone: these can be the happiest glasses you ever drain. Hangovers are another bad sign, and you should not expect to be believed if you take refuge in saying you can't properly remember last night. (If you really don't remember, that's an even worse sign.) Avoid all narcotics: these make you more boring rather than less and are not designed—as are the grape and the grain—to enliven company. Be careful about up-grading too far to single malt Scotch: when you are voyaging in rough countries it won't be easily available. Never even think about driving a car if you have taken a drop. It's much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don't know quite why this is true but it just is. Don't ever be responsible for it.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (Hitch 22: A Memoir)
“
You can be a drunk. You can be a survivor of abuse. You can be an ex-con. You can be a homeless person. You can lose all your money or your job or a husband or a wife, or the worst thing imaginable, a child. You can lose your marbles. You can be standing inside your own failure, a small sad stone in your throat, and still you are beautiful, your story is worth hearing, because you--you rare and phenomenal misfit--are the only one in the world who can tell the story the way that only you can.
”
”
Lidia Yuknavitch (The Misfit's Manifesto)
“
But love doesn't make a mean drunk not a mean drunk or a narcissist not a narcissist or a jackass not a jackass.
”
”
Cheryl Strayed (Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar)
“
For this reason the gentleman will employ a man on a distant mission and observe his degree of loyalty, will employ him close at hand and observe his degree of respect. He will hand him troublesome affairs and observe how well he manages them, will suddenly ask his advice and observe how wisely he answers. He will exact some difficult promise from him and see how well he keeps it, turn over funds to him and see with what benevolence he dispenses them, inform him of the danger he is in and note how faithful he is to his duties. He will get him drunk with wine and observe how well he handles himself, place him in mixed company and see what effect beauty has upon him. By applying these nine tests, you may determine who is the unworthy man.
”
”
Confucius
“
Just because you want to join the party does not mean you are required to stay until the last drunk passes out.
”
”
Sophia Dembling
“
Drinking is something people do; it's not what you are. But when it becomes what you are, you need to think about becoming something else.
”
”
Tim Cowlishaw (Drunk on Sports)
“
If only I’d remembered that old proverb: When three people say you are drunk, go to sleep.
”
”
Jenny Offill (Weather)
“
By the following morning, Anthony was drunk. By afternoon, he was hungover.
His head was pounding, his ears were ringing, and his brothers, who had been surprised to discover him
in such a state at
their club, were talking far too loudly.
Anthony put his hands over his ears and groaned.Everyone was talking far too loudly.
“Kate boot you out of the house?” Colin asked, grabbing a walnut from a large pewter dish in the middle
their table and
splitting it open with a viciously loud crack.
Anthony lifted his head just far enough to glare at him.
Benedict watched his brother with raised brows and the vaguest hint of a smirk. “She definitely booted
him out,” he said to Colin. “Hand me one of those walnuts, will you?”
Colin tossed one across the table. “Do you want the crackers as well?”
Benedict shook his head and grinned as he held up a fat, leather-bound book. “Much more satisfying to
smash them.”
“Don’t,” Anthony bit out, his hand shooting out to grab the book, “even think about it.”
“Ears a bit sensitive this afternoon, are they?”
If Anthony had had a pistol, he would have shot them both, hang the noise.
“If I might offer you a piece of advice?” Colin said, munching on his walnut.
“You might not,” Anthony replied. He looked up. Colin was chewing with his mouth open. As this had
been strictly forbidden while growing up in their household, Anthony could only deduce that Colin was
displaying such poor manners only to make more noise. “Close your damned mouth,” he muttered.
Colin swallowed, smacked his lips, and took a sip of his tea to wash it all down. “Whatever you did,
apologize for it. I know you, and I’m getting to know Kate, and knowing what I know—”
“What the hell is he talking about?” Anthony grumbled.
“I think,” Benedict said, leaning back in his chair, “that he’s telling you you’re an ass.”
“Just so!” Colin exclaimed.
Anthony just shook his head wearily. “It’s more complicated than you think.”
“It always is,” Benedict said, with sincerity so false it almost managed to sound sincere.
“When you two idiots find women gullible enough to actually marry you,” Anthony snapped, “then you
may presume to
offer me advice. But until then ...shut up.”
Colin looked at Benedict. “Think he’s angry?”
Benedict quirked a brow. “That or drunk.”
Colin shook his head. “No, not drunk. Not anymore, at least. He’s clearly hungover.”
“Which would explain,” Benedict said with a philosophical nod, “why he’s so angry.”
Anthony spread one hand over his face and pressed hard against his temples with his thumb and middle
finger. “God above,”
he muttered. ‘‘What would it take to get you two to leave me alone?”
“Go home, Anthony,” Benedict said, his voice surprisingly gentle.
”
”
Julia Quinn (The Viscount Who Loved Me (Bridgertons, #2))
“
Wise random strangers at bars are modern-day Oracles of Delphi, except drunk and sometimes leaving abruptly when it's their turn for karaoke.
”
”
Kelly Williams Brown (Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps)
“
You can’t just come out and say what you have to say. That’s what people do on airplanes, when a man plops down next to you in the aisle seat of your flight to New York, spills peanuts all over the place (back when the cheapskate airlines at least gave you peanuts), and tells you about what his boss did to him the day before. You know how your eyes glaze over when you hear a story like that? That’s because of the way he’s telling his story. You need a good way to tell your story.
”
”
Adair Lara (Naked, Drunk, and Writing: Writing Essays and Memoirs for Love and for Money)
“
Junko: That sort of thing happens all the time. You get drunk on your own "correctness," and the more stubborn you get, the further happiness flies away from you. It's a bitter pill to swallow.
Madoka: I wonder if there's any way I can help...
Junko: Even good advice from others won't bring any clear solutions to someone in that frame of mind. ...Even so, you want to find a solution? Then go ahead and screw up. If she's being too correct, then somebody should make mistakes for her.
Madoka: I should screw up...?
Junko: Yep! Tell a really bad lie. Run away in the face of something scary. She may not understand what you're trying to do at first, but there are times when you realize in hindsight that a mistake was the right thing to do... During those times when you're just stuck for an answer, making a mistake is one method of unsticking yourself. Madoka, you've grown up to be a good kid. You don't tell lies, and you don't do bad things. You're a girl who works hard at what she thinks is right. You get an "A" as a child. So before you become an adult, you have to start practicing falling down. You see, we adults have our pride and responsibilities, so it becomes harder and harder to make mistakes.
”
”
Magica Quartet (Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Vol. 2 (Puella Magi Madoka Magica, #2))
“
I don’t intend to use beer as a crutch and drink until I pass out. So advice, keep an eye on that so you can get in there and get yourself drunk sex before it turns unpretty and drunk sex ends with me puking and / or passing out during the act.
”
”
Kristen Ashley (Jagged (Colorado Mountain, #5))
“
Still, you can’t deny that, like goldfish and gummies, The Little Mermaid is fucking magical. I still feel sparkles in my stomach when I watch it. Despite Ariel wearing an ocean bra for most of that movie, and despite the fact that a man ultimately saves her from an evil plus-sized sea witch, and despite Ariel ditching her entire family for this man just because he’s a handsome prince, I gave in and showed The Little Mermaid to Mari on repeat. Those songs are also the shit. I’m a sucker for a drunk seagull best friend and since this is a safe space free of judgment: Ariel’s dad is kinda hot? I still find my feelings about King Triton confusing. He looks like Santa with abs and a tail.
”
”
Ali Wong (Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, and Advice for Living Your Best Life)
“
Livia stayed silent and tried to quiet the screaming in her head. Fuck your mother, Blake! She was a drunk and a coward. You were a child, not a man, and you were only trying to end your own pain. She held tight to Dr. Lavender’s advice. Listen. This was Blake’s plane crash. Livia’s silence invited him to continue.
”
”
Debra Anastasia (Poughkeepsie (Poughkeepsie Brotherhood, #1))
“
Write drunk (on emotion); edit sober (on rationality and intention).
Faulkner, reimagined by me.
”
”
Christina Cooke
“
Advice doesn’t help lovers!
They’re not the kind of mountain stream
you can build a dam across.
An intellectual doesn’t know
what the drunk is feeling!
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (The Essential Rumi, New Expanded Edition)
“
This is not because he doesn’t love you. But love doesn’t make a mean drunk not a mean drunk or a narcissist not a narcissist or a jackass not a jackass.
”
”
Cheryl Strayed (Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar)
“
Then he gave me the best advice of my life. “Listen, sonny boy. An Irishman is never drunk as long as he can hold on to one blade of grass and not fall off the face of the earth.” SPRING BREAK Heaven’s Waiting Room
”
”
Wade Rouse (It's All Relative: Two Families, Three Dogs, 34 Holidays, and 50 Boxes of Wine (A Memoir))
“
I’m an old man trying to give a young daughter advice, and it’s like a monkey trying to teach table manners to a bear. A drunk driver took my son’s life seventeen years ago and my wife has never been the same since. I’ve always seen the question of abortion in terms of Fred. I seem to be helpless to see it any other way, just as helpless as you were to stop your giggles when they came on you at that poetry reading, Frannie. Your mother would argue against it for all the standard reasons. Morality, she’d say. A morality that goes back two thousand years. The right to life. All our Western morality is based on that idea. I’ve read the philosophers. I range up and down them like a housewife with a dividend check in the Sears and Roebuck store. Your mother sticks with the Reader’s Digest, but it’s me that ends up arguing from feeling and her from the codes of morality. I just see Fred. He was destroyed inside. There was no chance for him. These right-to-life biddies hold up their pictures of babies drowned in salt, and arms and legs scraped out onto a steel table, so what? The end of a life is never pretty. I just see Fred, lying in that bed for seven days, everything that was ruined pasted over with bandages. Life is cheap, abortion makes it cheaper. I read more than she does, but she is the one who ends up making more sense on this one. What we do and what we think… those things are so often based on arbitrary judgments when they are right. I can’t get over that. It’s like a block in my throat, how all true logic seems to proceed from irrationality. From faith. I’m not making much sense, am I?
”
”
Stephen King (The Stand)
“
When I learned my mom was going to die of cancer at the age of forty-five, I felt the same way. I didn’t even believe in God, but I still felt that he owed me something. I had the gall to think How dare he? I couldn’t help myself. I’m a selfish brute. I wanted what I wanted and I expected it to be given to me by a God in whom I had no faith. Because mercy had always more or less been granted me, I assumed it always would be. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t granted to my friend whose eighteen-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk driver either. Nor was it granted to my other friend who learned her baby is going to die of a genetic disorder in the not-distant future. Nor was it granted to my former student whose mother was murdered by her father before he killed himself. It was not granted to all those people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time when they came up against the wrong virus or military operation or famine or carcinogenic or genetic mutation or natural disaster or maniac. Countless people have been devastated for reasons that cannot be explained or justified in spiritual terms. To do as you are doing in asking If there were a God, why would he let my little girl have to have possibly life-threatening surgery?— understandable as that question is—creates a false hierarchy of the blessed and the damned. To use our individual good or bad luck as a litmus test to determine whether or not God exists constructs an illogical dichotomy that reduces our capacity for true compassion. It implies a pious quid pro quo that defies history, reality, ethics, and reason. It fails to acknowledge that the other half of rising—the very half that makes rising necessary— is having first been nailed to the cross. That
”
”
Cheryl Strayed (Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Someone Who's Been There)
“
That’s not wise, Lin. I think wisdom is very over-rated. Wisdom is just cleverness, with all the guts kicked out of it. I’d rather be clever than wise, any day. Most of the wise people I know give me a headache, but I never met a clever man or woman I didn’t like. If I was giving wise advice—which I’m not—I’d say don’t get drunk, don’t spend all your money, and don’t fall in love with a pretty village girl. That would be wise. That’s the difference between clever and wise. I prefer to be clever, and that’s why I told you to surrender, when you get to the village, no matter what you find when you get there. Okay. I’m going. Come and see me when you get back. I look forward to it. I really do.
”
”
Gregory David Roberts (Shantaram)
“
Don't get killed. Don't get robbed. Don't get billed for jobs that were abandoned. Don't let your house burn or your pipes burst or your children curse. Don't let your purse get stolen. Don't get trapped underwater. Don't get food poisoning or the flu. For God's sake get vaccinated. Don't get cancer. Seriously. Do. Not. Get. Cancer. Don't get t-boned by a drunk. Don't get struck by lightning. Don't get allergies. Don't get depressed. Don't get noticed by the IRS. Don't get catfished or gaslit. Don't get ghosted by an ex. Don't get talked into a bigger car. Don't get bit by a rabid dog. Don't get your boo angry. Don't get cheated on. Don't get called out, dragged, tagged in pics you don't remember.
Don't get raped
cause the jack asses and idiots will say that's your fault, too.
”
”
Laurie Halse Anderson (Shout)
“
But love doesn’t make a mean drunk not a mean drunk or a narcissist not a narcissist or a jackass not a jackass. At your wedding, your father will most likely behave the way he has behaved for all the years you’ve known him. Even if he doesn’t, what’s the best-case scenario? That you spend your wedding day worrying that your father is going to make an ass of himself and humiliate you and enrage your mom and alienate your in-laws, but he doesn’t? Does that sound like fun? Is that what you hoped for? Is that what you want? Of course not.
”
”
Cheryl Strayed (Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar)
“
I went to a party,
And remembered what you said.
You told me not to drink, Mom
So I had a sprite instead.
I felt proud of myself,
The way you said I would,
That I didn't drink and drive,
Though some friends said I should.
I made a healthy choice,
And your advice to me was right,
The party finally ended,
And the kids drove out of sight.
I got into my car,
Sure to get home in one piece,
I never knew what was coming, Mom
Something I expected least.
Now I'm lying on the pavement,
And I hear the policeman say,
The kid that caused this wreck was drunk,
Mom, his voice seems far away.
My own blood's all around me,
As I try hard not to cry.
I can hear the paramedic say,
This girl is going to die.
I'm sure the guy had no idea,
While he was flying high,
Because he chose to drink and drive,
Now I would have to die.
So why do people do it, Mom
Knowing that it ruins lives?
And now the pain is cutting me,
Like a hundred stabbing knives.
Tell sister not to be afraid,
Tell daddy to be brave,
And when I go to heaven,
Put Daddy's Girl on my grave.
Someone should have taught him,
That its wrong to drink and drive.
Maybe if his parents had,
I'd still be alive.
My breath is getting shorter, Mom
I'm getting really scared.
These are my final moments,
And I'm so unprepared.
I wish that you could hold me Mom,
As I lie here and die.
I wish that I could say, "I love you, Mom!"
So I love you and good-bye.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Most people don’t cheat because they’re cheaters. They cheat because they are people. They are driven by hunger or for the experience of someone being hungry once more for them. They find themselves in friendships that take an unintended turn or they seek them out because they’re horny or drunk or damaged from all the stuff they didn’t get when they were kids. There is love. There is lust. There is opportunity. There is alcohol. And youth. There is loneliness and boredom and sorrow and weakness and self-destruction and idiocy and arrogance and romance and ego and nostalgia and power and need. There is the compelling temptation of intimacies with someone other than the person with whom one is most intimate.
”
”
Cheryl Strayed (Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar)
“
Motor-scooter riders with big beards and girl friends who bounce on the back of the scooters and wear their hair long in front of their faces as well as behind, drunks who follow the advice of the Hat Council and are always turned out in hats, but not hats the Council would approve. Mr. Lacey, the locksmith,, shups up his shop for a while and goes to exchange time of day with Mr. Slube at the cigar store. Mr. Koochagian, the tailor, waters luxuriant jungle of plants in his window, gives them a critical look from the outside, accepts compliments on them from two passers-by, fingers the leaves on the plane tree in front of our house with a thoughtful gardener's appraisal, and crosses the street for a bite at the Ideal where he can keep an eye on customers and wigwag across the message that he is coming. The baby carriages come out, and clusters of everyone from toddlers with dolls to teenagers with homework gather at the stoops.
When I get home from work, the ballet is reaching its cresendo. This is the time roller skates and stilts and tricycles and games in the lee of the stoop with bottletops and plastic cowboys, this is the time of bundles and packages, zigzagging from the drug store to the fruit stand and back over to the butcher's; this is the time when teenagers, all dressed up, are pausing to ask if their slips shows or their collars look right; this is the time when beautiful girls get out of MG's; this is the time when the fire engines go through; this is the time when anybody you know on Hudson street will go by.
As the darkness thickens and Mr. Halpert moors the laundry cart to the cellar door again, the ballet goes under lights, eddying back nad forth but intensifying at the bright spotlight pools of Joe's sidewalk pizza, the bars, the delicatessen, the restaurant and the drug store. The night workers stop now at the delicatessen, to pick up salami and a container of milk. Things have settled down for the evening but the street and its ballet have not come to a stop.
I know the deep night ballet and its seasons best from waking long after midnight to tend a baby and, sitting in the dark, seeing the shadows and hearing sounds of the sidewalk. Mostly it is a sound like infinitely patterning snatches of party conversation, and, about three in the morning, singing, very good singing. Sometimes their is a sharpness and anger or sad, sad weeping, or a flurry of search for a string of beads broken. One night a young man came roaring along, bellowing terrible language at two girls whom he had apparently picked up and who were disappointing him. Doors opened, a wary semicircle formed around him, not too close, until police came. Out came the heads, too, along the Hudsons street, offering opinion, "Drunk...Crazy...A wild kid from the suburbs"
Deep in the night, I am almost unaware of how many people are on the street unless someone calls the together. Like the bagpipe. Who the piper is and why he favored our street I have no idea.
”
”
Jane Jacobs
“
Right about here will do,” I decided. I cast a magelight to illuminate the place. The first faint glow of dawn was arising along the horizon in the east, but it was still as dark as a miner’s butt. “When my father heard that I was having a girl, he gave me some advice,” I said, stripping off my mantle. “As the father of five daughter’s himself, he was full of sage wisdom on the subject of raising girls.” “Are they any different than raising boys?” “Worlds apart,” I nodded. “But he said there are some things that you can count on with girls,” I continued, philosophically. “When a young father has a girl, he’s strong. By the time she grows into a lovely young woman, age takes a toll on a man. He’s not as strong. “So . . . when a young woman enters courting age, you might not be as hale as you are now, my friend. And you will find the nights colder in your bones.” “You . . . you fear I won’t have the strength to show him the door?” He still looked confused. And a little drunk. As big as he is, Arborn is a lightweight when it comes to his cups. “Oh, no. When the wrong sort of suitor shows interest in your daughter,” I explained, as I took out the hoxter wand, “then passion can provide the strength you need to contend with the situation. “But passion fades, when the deed is done. And then you are left with but your decrepit strength, and a long night of work ahead.” I manifested two shovels from the hoxter. “My father told me that the wise father of any daughter has the foresight to dig the hole while he’s still young and strong. It saves the trouble of a long night, when you are old and weary.” “A hole? For . . .?” “My father assures me this is effective: for someone who is not impressed by being shown a hole an attentive father dug before he was born and intended for him, at need,” I supplied. “Mine is behind the stable at the castle. If a young man is worrisome, I’ll show him the hole, and explain the purpose. You have three daughters. That’s three holes. I’ll help you dig.
”
”
Terry Mancour (Necromancer (The Spellmonger #10))
“
Look, Horza,” Yalson said, turning to him, “when you come on board this ship you don’t have a past. It’s considered very bad manners to ask anybody where they came from or what they’ve done in their lives before they joined. Maybe we’ve all got some secrets, or we just don’t want to talk or think about some of the things we’ve done, or some of the things we’ve had done to us. But either way, don’t try to find out. Between your ears is the only place on this crate you’ll ever get any privacy, so make the most of it. If you live long enough, maybe somebody will want to tell you all about themselves—eventually, probably when they’re drunk… but by that time you may not want them to. Whatever; my advice is just to leave it for the moment.
”
”
Iain M. Banks (Consider Phlebas (Culture, #1))
“
Politicians use economics in the same way that a drunk uses lamp-posts—for support rather than illumination. —variation on a theme of Andrew Lang (1910)
”
”
Alan S. Blinder (Advice and Dissent: Why America Suffers When Economics and Politics Collide)
“
The Days stared down at his mug, knowing he’d said too much, needing to say one thing more. ‘Your Lordship, perhaps it is well that you do not value virtue in your friends. You will know not to trust them. And if you are wise, you will not trust yourself.’
‘How so?’ Gabon asked wondering. With each Days twinned to another, they were never alone, never had the luxury of trusting themselves. Gabon wondered if this pairing was really an advantage.
‘Men who believe themselves to be good, who do not search their own souls, most often commit the worst atrocities. A man who sees himself as evil will restrain himself. It is only when we do evil in the belief that we do good that we pursue wholeheartedly.’
Gabon grunted, considering.
‘If I may be so bold, Your Lordship, I’m glad you question yourself. Men don’t become good by practicing an occasional good deed. You must constantly reexamine your thoughts and acts, question your virtue.’
Gabon stared at the thin scholar. The man’s eyes were getting glassy, and he could barely hold his head up. His thinking seemed somewhat clearer than the common drunk’s and he offered his advice in a kind tone. No Days had ever offered Gabon advice before. It was a singular experience.
At that moment, the inn door opened. Two more men entered, both with dark complexions, both with brown eyes. They were dressed as merchants fresh off the road, but both wore rapiers at their side, and both had long knives strapped at their knees.
One man smiled, the other frowned.
Gabon remembered something his father had taught him as a child. ‘In the land of Muyyatin, assassins always travel in pairs. They talk with gestures.’ The Gabon’s father had taught him the assassins’ codes. One man smiling, one man frowning – No news, either good or bad.
Gabon’s eyes flicked across the room, to the two dark man in the far corner. Like himself, they had chosen a secure position, had put their backs to the wall.
One man in the corner scratched his left ear. We have heard nothing.
The newcomers sat at a table on the far side of the room from their compatriots. One man put his hands on the table, palms down. We wait.
”
”
David Farland (The Runelords (Runelords, #1))
“
On Writing
The most important is that the writer’s original perception of a character or characters may be as erroneous as the readers. Running a close second was the realization that stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing god work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.
The idea that creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time. Four twentieth century writers; Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson and the poet Dylan Thomas. They are the writers who largely formed our vision of an existential English speaking wasteland where people have been cut off from one another and live in an atmosphere of strangulation and despair. These concepts are very familiar to most alcoholics; the common reaction to them is amusement. Substance abusing writers are just substance abusers - common garden variety drunks and druggies, in other words. Any claims that the drugs and alcohol are necessary to dull a finer sensibility are just the usual self-serving bullshit…. for an addict, the right to the drink or drug of choice must be preserved at all costs. Hemingway and Fitzgerald didn’t drink because they were creative, alienated, or morally weak. They drank because that’s what alkies are wired up to do. Creative people probably do run a greater risk of alcoholism and addiction than those in some other jubs, but so what? We all look pretty much the same when we’re puking in the gutter.
You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair - the sense that you can never completely put on the pages what’s in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you, or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again, you must not come lightly to the blank page.
I am not asking you to come reverently or unquestioningly; I’m not asking you to be politically correct or to cast aside your sense of humor (please God you have one). This isn’t a popularity contest, it isn’t the moral olympics and it’s not church. But it’s writing, damn it, not washing the car. If you take it seriously, we can do business. If you can’t or won’t, it’s time for you to close the book and do something else.
”
”
Stephen King
“
Wanting to thank him for his gifts, she left the tent to find her husband. He was in the middle of the camp, with knights all around him. She paused as she saw him there. He was again garbed as a black-robed monk, but he had taken time to shave this morning. There was no sign of the sword she knew he had strapped to his hips and she could barely catch a glimpse of his mail-covered leggings beneath it. He was handsome, her prince. More so than any man in the group. He, Phantom, Ioan, Lutian, and three men she knew not at all were standing in a circle as they discussed some matter. Her heart light, she approached her husband from behind. Ioan was speaking. “You know, Abbot, I hear wormwood helps with that problem.” He held his hand up and crooked his finger down as if it were suddenly limp. All the men save Christian laughed, while Christian glared murderously at Lutian.
“Look to the good of it,” Phantom said as he sobered. He appeared to be imparting grave advice to her husband. “I hear all men have trouble from time to time with their sexual performance. Mind you, I have no personal experience with that, but…” His voice trailed off as he looked past Christian to see Adara glowering at him.
Struggling not to strangle the men who mocked him, Christian turned to see what had disturbed Phantom to find Adara standing behind him. His groin jerked awake at the vision she made in her finery. She was beautiful. The gown fit even better than he had hoped. Unlike her peasant garb, this one laced in the front and at the sides, pulling the cloth into a perfect fit that showed every lush curve of her body. The only thing that sparkled more than her jewels were her brown eyes.
“Thank you,” she said softly before she kissed his cheek. “I had a most wondrous night.”
Christian was too dumbstruck by his lust to even respond.
Lutian bristled at her actions and if she didn’t know better, she’d swear he was jealous. “Nay. Tell me this isn’t so. Why are you kissing him, my queen? It was me. Me. I’m the one who told him what to do. He had no idea how to please you. None. He was lost and confused when he sought me out. He didn’t even know how to do the most basic thing. It was me, all me.”
Every man there gaped at Lutian’s words.
“Christ’s toes, Christian,” Ioan said in disbelief. “Are you a monk in truth? Don’t tell me you had to take advice from the fool on how to please a woman? You should have come to me. At least I know what I’m doing.”
“You can’t be a virgin,” Phantom said. “What about that Norman tart in Hexham? Surely you did more than talk to her when the two of you vanished to her room?”
“Nay,” another knight said. “I saw him drunk in Calais with two women.”
“Aye,” another knight began. “I was with him in London when he vanished for three days with a widowed countess.”
Christian ground his teeth as this conversation quickly degenerated, while Lutian continued to take credit for instructing him on how to please Adara. Lutian still held Adara’s attention. “I’m the one who got him—” Enraged, Christian lunged for the source of his current humiliation.
“Christian!” Adara snapped as he seized her fool. “Don’t hurt Lutian.”
He wanted to do much more than hurt the fool. He wanted to tear the man’s head from his shoulders. Growling in frustration, he let the fool go.
“Thank you, my queen.”
“’Tis my place to hurt him.” She glared at her fool and smacked him on his arm. “I fully intend to take this up with you later.”
She walked over to Ioan. “And for your information, my lord…” She lifted his hand and put his index and middle finger upright. “I assure you that there is nothing wrong with Christian’s technique or prowess.
”
”
Kinley MacGregor (Return of the Warrior (Brotherhood of the Sword, #6))
“
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”
”
Boiler Repair
“
For eighteen hours we had neither drunk nor eaten anything. My body and mind both felt strangely distant. Both were aching for some relief.
In the porch of our tiny single-skinned tent, I reached out to hug Neil again. Then--unceremoniously--I collapsed.
“Bear, come on, buddy. You’ve got to get inside the tent properly. Bear, can you hear me?” Michael’s voice brought me round. He had been waiting for us at the col--hoping.
I shuffled backward into the tent. My head was pounding. I needed to drink. I hadn’t peed for more than twenty-four hours.
Neil and Alan were slowly shedding their harnesses. Neither had the energy to speak. Michael passed me a warm drink from the stove. I was so happy to see him and Geoffrey in one piece.
As the afternoon turned to evening we talked.
I hadn’t really known fully why Michael and Geoffrey had retreated. They told their story. Of the impending storm and their growing fatigue, as they struggled in the deep snow and thin air. Their retreat had been a decision based on sound mountain judgment.
A good call. Hence they were alive.
We, though, had kept going. That decision had been based on an element of recklessness. But we got lucky, and that storm never came.
Daring had won out--this time.
It doesn’t always.
Knowing when to be reckless and when to be safe is the great mountaineering game. I knew that.
Michael turned to me later as we were getting ready for our last night in the Death Zone. He told me something that I have never forgotten. It was the voice of twenty years’ climbing experience in the wild Rockies of Canada.
“Bear, do you realize the risk you guys were taking up there? It was more recklessness than good judgment, in my opinion.” He smiled and looked right at me.
“My advice: from now on in your life, rein it back a fraction--and you will go far. You’ve survived this time--now go use that good fortune.”
I have never forgotten those words.
”
”
Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
“
When love intoxicates your heart, it is difficult for your soul to remain sober.
”
”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
While King Ahasuerus has been rotating his guests during these six months, these seven princes have most likely been with him the whole time as well. To Ahasuerus, it may have seemed that these were the right men to go to for advice, but Ahasuerus is not at his sharpest after these six months of celebrating. We can only imagine that these advisors are as bored and as drunk as King Ahasuerus, even though earlier in this chapter (verse 8) the historian makes a point of telling us that the guests were not required to drink. These men may have been “partying” right along with Ahasuerus for these six months, and their judgement may be hindered by the atmosphere as much as the king’s judgement has been hindered. On a more personal note, can you think of any time when you sought out the wrong person for advice or counsel? I sure can! You would not seek advice on your finances from someone who filed bankruptcy yesterday, nor would you seek advice on marriage from a child. When you need wise counsel, you need to find someone who has experienced victory in the same situation in which you are experiencing difficulty. Of course, when I catch myself looking to the wrong people for advice, many times I realize something: I am not really looking for advice, I am looking for support. Sometimes we seek out people that we expect will be sympathetic to our cause. Ahasuerus may have done this very thing in choosing these men. Maybe Ahasuerus has already determined what he wants to do with Vashti, and now he is looking for validation. Big mistake! Here is a lesson we can take from Ahasuerus: there are situations in our lives when we should seek an opinion from an objective party. The Bible encourages us to seek wise counsel. We should use wisdom and choose someone with more experience and wisdom than we have ourselves. If Ahasuerus wanted approval, he found it in these seven advisors. If he merely wanted a decisive opinion on what course of action to take, he has found that. And Memucan answered before the king and the princes: “Queen Vashti has not only wronged the king, but also all the princes, and all the people who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. For the queen’s behavior will become known to all women, so that they will despise their husbands in their eyes, when they report, ‘King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought in before him, but she did not come.’ Esther 1:16-17 When Ahasuerus asks for advice, one of the advisors speaks out quickly. Memucan answers Ahasuerus, and apparently he has taken Vashti’s refusal pretty personally himself. Perhaps Memucan’s wife is among those women that Vashti is entertaining. Memucan exaggerates this situation to make it seem like a very serious infraction indeed, and he wants the king to see it his way. Memucan says, “Queen Vashti has not only wronged the king, but also all the princes, and all the people who are in all the provinces” (v. 16). He suggests that the queen’s refusal will make all women despise their husbands (v. 17). … Is Memucan taking this situation a little far? This very day the noble ladies of Persia and Media will say to all the king’s officials that they have heard of the behavior of the queen. Thus there will be excessive contempt and wrath. If it pleases the king, let a royal decree go out from him, and let it be recorded in the laws of the Persians and the Medes, so that it will not be altered, that Vashti shall come no more before King Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal position to
”
”
Jennifer Spivey (Esther: Reflections From An Unexpected Life)
“
Funny though. If he finds a way to make a morally just cause heard, he becomes a saint...His worst enemy is himself. Which is what you have to deal with if you want to be with him. He's anxious like the show-off drunk at a karaoke bar when the words don't come up on the screen. Make sure you give him the script so he has something to read from.
”
”
Jenni Kosarin (He's Just Not in the Stars: Wicked Astrology and Uncensored Advice for Getting the (Almost) Perfect Guy)
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Listening, true deep listening—when someone takes your words in deep—that kind of listening is rare and healing, and when you go to buy some, it’s expensive. The going rate for therapy is $190 an hour. And up. But some listening is free or has a put-a-dollar-in-the-basket fee. So far, the best treatment for alcoholism we know of is a room full of drunks listening to one another, listening without offering advice or argument—cross talk is forbidden—so that whoever speaks is truly heard. Laughter fills these meetings. The great, knowing, soul-gusting laughter of shared experience . . .
”
”
Michelle Huneven (Search)
“
The idea of 'writing drunk' is to write bravely and without boundaries. As spiritual writers, we don’t need outside chemistry to be happy and creative. We learn how to be intoxicated with the beauty of life and the love of the Divine. That is an endless source of inspiration, freshness, and intelligence.
”
”
Donna Goddard (Writing: A Spiritual Voice (The Creative Spirit Series, #2))
“
I’ll have a better one with someone else.’” He bursts into tears. “I have never see anyone talk about own child like that. I think, maybe he is just drunk, or angry because he just get punch. But then he tell me how he going to get rich, and that’s why he leaving you, because he don’t want to have to divide the money with you. I say, but you must provide for your wife and child, and he laugh.
”
”
Jesse Q. Sutanto (Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (Vera Wong, #1))
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Do not destroy your by being drunk.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita
“
Do not destroy yourself by being drunk.
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”
Lailah Gifty Akita
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Do not get drunk with wine, which leads to dissipation, but be filled with the holy spirit.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita
“
Once in a while, they passed gangs of demobilized Japanese soldiers. They were drunk on rubbing alcohol, singing, yelling, and arguing. Harry and Chester skirted around them, following police advice about avoiding confrontations
”
”
Pamela Rotner Sakamoto (Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds)
“
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. ITS CITIZENS ARE DRUNK ON WONDER. Consider the case of Sarai.1 She is in her golden years, but God promises her a son. She gets excited. She visits the maternity shop and buys a few dresses. She plans her shower and remodels her tent . . . but no son. She eats a few birthday cakes and blows out a lot of candles . . . still no son. She goes through a decade of wall calendars . . . still no son. So Sarai decides to take matters into her own hands. (“Maybe God needs me to take care of this one.”) She convinces Abram that time is running out. (“Face it, Abe, you ain’t getting any younger, either.”) She commands her maid, Hagar, to go into Abram’s tent and see if he needs anything. (“And I mean ‘anything’!”) Hagar goes in a maid. She comes out a mom. And the problems begin. Hagar is haughty. Sarai is jealous. Abram is dizzy from the dilemma. And God calls the baby boy a “wild donkey”—an appropriate name for one born out of stubbornness and destined to kick his way into history. It isn’t the cozy family Sarai expected. And it isn’t a topic Abram and Sarai bring up very often at dinner. Finally, fourteen years later, when Abram is pushing a century of years and Sarai ninety . . . when Abram has stopped listening to Sarai’s advice, and Sarai has stopped giving it . . . when the wallpaper in the nursery is faded and the baby furniture is several seasons out of date . . . when the topic of the promised child brings sighs and tears and long looks into a silent sky . . . God pays them a visit and tells them they had better select a name for their new son. Abram and Sarai have the same response: laughter. They laugh partly because it is too good to happen and partly because it might. They laugh because they have given up hope, and hope born anew is always funny before it is real. They laugh at the lunacy of it all. Abram looks over at Sarai—toothless and snoring in her rocker, head back and mouth wide open, as fruitful as a pitted prune and just as wrinkled. And he cracks up. He tries to contain it, but he can’t. He has always been a sucker for a good joke. Sarai is just as amused. When she hears the news, a cackle escapes before she can contain it. She mumbles something about her husband’s needing a lot more than what he’s got and then laughs again. They laugh because that is what you do when someone says he can do the impossible. They laugh a little at God, and a lot with God—for God is laughing too. Then, with the smile still on his face, he gets busy doing what he does best—the unbelievable.
”
”
Max Lucado (The Applause of Heaven: Discover the Secret to a Truly Satisfying Life)
“
Sylvia leans against the railing of her porch, keeping a lookout for the little girl. She can hear Jamie’s anger echo in the night. The shrillness of his tires on the hot summer pavement, the sting of his words. She sighs, knowing that like a flood this was inevitable and that it would happen again and again and all that would remain would be bruises and teeth and a half drunk beers where there shouldn’t be. This is always how it is with Jamie—a hurricane, a flood, a natural disaster. A mess, but never a mess as cruel as tonight. She has to cut him out. She can climb on her own.
”
”
Erin Emily Ann Vance (Advice for Taxidermists and Amateur Beekeepers)
“
While we sat at the bar, Dave told me the most important advice about talking to women I had ever received, and that was to be as relaxed as possible and not fear rejection. Dave then began hooking up with some girl who looked like a hybrid of Rosie O’Donnell and Miss Piggy, leaving me alone to ponder his words.”
“When I was in 8th grade, there was this girl named Sandra who I used to ride the school bus with. Sandra was about 5’2, 120 lbs, and looked like the Hamburglar. She was the prettiest girl in my class.”
“In my mind I was the life of the party and felt as though I could do no wrong when it came to interacting with the opposite sex. That was until Marissa caught me red handed hooking up with some girl who looked like a combination of John Madden and Andre the Giant, tapping me on the shoulder and kicking me square in the nuts.”
“I was starting to feel bad about how I treated women. Oh wait, no I wasn’t. The girls at Binghamton were nothing more than a bunch of dumb sluts that just wanted to get drunk and suck dick, and besides, they were all going to make a lot more money than me in the future. So I may as well catch brains while these bitches were dumb enough to blow me.”
“Out of all the people I could’ve stumbled into blackout drunk, why did it have to be THE MOOSE? As son as she saw me her 300 lb frame waddled over, and she jammed her tongue down my throat, devouring me as though I were a Big Mac. This was embarrassing. Here I was making out with some girl who looked like Eric Cartman in a dress, and everybody was watching. My life was effectively over.”
“After annihilating Ruben’s toilet, I looked over my shoulder for some much-needed toilet paper, when to my shock and dismay there was not a single sheet of paper in sight. There’s no way in hell I was rejoining the party covered in poop and I would have wiped my ass with anything. That’s when I noticed his New York Yankees bath towel.”
“I spent the rest of my week off getting completely shitfaced with Chris, and that’s when I realized I might be developing a drinking problem. At Bar None, hooking up with some girl who looked like the Loch Ness Monster; this shit had to stop. Alcohol was turning me into a drunken mess, and I vowed right then and there to quit drinking and start smoking more weed immediately.”
“I got a new roommate. His name was Erick and he was an ex-marine. Erick and I didn’t know each other, but he knew Kevin, and he also knew that I didn’t shower and that last semester I left a used condom on the floor for two weeks without throwing it away. Eric therefore did not want to live with me.”
“Believe it or not, I got another job working with the disabled. See, Manny was nice enough to hook me up with a position as a job coach at the Lavelle School for the Blind. The kid’s name was Fred and he was blind with cerebral palsy. Fred loved dogs and I loved smoking week. Bad combination, and I was fired with 3 days left in the program after allowing Fred to run across the street into oncoming traffic, because I had smoked a bowl an hour earlier. Manny and I never spoke again.”
“My life was a dream and a nightmare rolled into one. Here I was living this carefree existence, getting drunk, boning bitches, and playing Sega Genesis in between. Oh wait, what am I talking about? My life was awesome. It’s the rest of my life that’s going to suck.
”
”
Alexander Strenger