“
Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)... There are just some kind of men who - who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.
”
”
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
“
Maybe there is no Heaven. Or maybe this is all pure gibberish—a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow—to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested . . . Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll.
”
”
Hunter S. Thompson (Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80's)
“
Whisky, gambling and Ferraris are better than housework.
”
”
Françoise Sagan
“
The light music of whisky falling into glasses made an agreeable interlude.
”
”
James Joyce (Dubliners)
“
Scotch whisky is made from barley and the morning dew on angel's nipples.
”
”
Warren Ellis
“
Girls like her, my grandfather once warned me, girls like her turn into women with eyes like bullet holes and mouths made of knives. They are always restless. They are always hungry. They are bad news. They will drink you down like a shot of whisky. Falling in love with them is like falling down a flight of stairs. What no one told me, with all those warnings, is that even after you’ve fallen, even after you know how painful it is, you’d still get in line to do it again.
”
”
Holly Black (Black Heart (Curse Workers, #3))
“
Whisky is liquid sunshine.
”
”
George Bernard Shaw
“
live out where the real winds blow—to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested . . . Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll.
”
”
Hunter S. Thompson
“
If you want to know what's in motherhood for you, as a woman, then - in truth - it's nothing you couldn't get from, say, reading the 100 greatest books in human history; learning a foreign language well enough to argue in it; climbing hills; loving recklessly; sitting quietly, alone, in the dawn; drinking whisky with revolutionaries; learning to do close-hand magic; swimming in a river in winter; growing foxgloves, peas and roses; calling your mum; singing while you walk; being polite; and always, always helping strangers. No one has ever claimed for a moment that childless men have missed out on a vital aspect of their existence, and were the poorer, and crippled by it.
”
”
Caitlin Moran (How to Be a Woman)
“
After doing extensive research, I can definitely tell you that single malt whiskies are good to drink.
”
”
Iain Banks (Raw Spirit)
“
How do men act on a sinking ship? Do they hold each other? Do they pass around the whisky? Do they cry?
”
”
Sebastian Junger (The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea)
“
Her name was Maude and she drank whisky all day from a fruit jar under the counter.
”
”
Flannery O'Connor (Wise Blood)
“
Whisky, I find, helps clarity of thought. And reduces pain. It has the additional virtue of making you drunk or, if taken in sufficient quantity, very drunk.
”
”
Julian Barnes (The Sense of an Ending)
“
I've had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that's the record . . .
”
”
Dylan Thomas
“
The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks more whisky than is good for him. He does it to give himself faith hope and courage. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul and that I am sure is why he does it.
”
”
Roald Dahl (Boy: Tales of Childhood (Roald Dahl's Autobiography, #1))
“
All worries are less with wine.
”
”
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
“
The problem with heartbreak is that nobody can help you when you're heartbroken. Nobody and nothing. Not the films you watch alone desperately searching for a character who feels the way you do, not the glasses or bottles of whisky you keep by your bed and certainly not Instagram.
”
”
Alexa Chung (It)
“
Time was simple, is simple. We can divide it into simple parts, measure it, arrange dinner by it, drink whisky to its passage. We can mathematically deploy it, use it to express ideas about the observable universe, and yet if asked to explain it in simple language to a child–in simple language which is not deceit, of course–we are powerless. The most it ever seems we know how to do with time is to waste it.
”
”
Claire North (The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August)
“
That's Delhi. When life gets too much for you all you need to do is to spend an hour at Nigambodh Ghat,watch the dead being put to flames and hear their kin wail for them. Then come home and down a couple of pegs of whisky. In Delhi, death and drink make life worth living,
”
”
Khushwant Singh (Delhi)
“
Los ingleses tienen 3 cosas de las que mostrarse orgullosos: El té, el whisky y un escritor como yo.
Pero resulta que el té es chino; el whisky, escocés; y yo soy irlandés.
”
”
Oscar Wilde
“
I'm on a whisky diet. I've lost three days already.
”
”
Tommy Cooper
“
For Jenn
At 12 years old I started bleeding with the moon
and beating up boys who dreamed of becoming astronauts.
I fought with my knuckles white as stars,
and left bruises the shape of Salem.
There are things we know by heart,
and things we don't.
At 13 my friend Jen tried to teach me how to blow rings of smoke.
I'd watch the nicotine rising from her lips like halos,
but I could never make dying beautiful.
The sky didn't fill with colors the night I convinced myself
veins are kite strings you can only cut free.
I suppose I love this life,
in spite of my clenched fist.
I open my palm and my lifelines look like branches from an Aspen tree,
and there are songbirds perched on the tips of my fingers,
and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath
the first time his fingers touched the keys
the same way a soldier holds his breath
the first time his finger clicks the trigger.
We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe.
But my lungs remember
the day my mother took my hand and placed it on her belly
and told me the symphony beneath was my baby sister's heartbeat.
And I knew life would tremble
like the first tear on a prison guard's hardened cheek,
like a prayer on a dying man's lips,
like a vet holding a full bottle of whisky like an empty gun in a war zone…
just take me just take me
Sometimes the scales themselves weigh far too much,
the heaviness of forever balancing blue sky with red blood.
We were all born on days when too many people died in terrible ways,
but you still have to call it a birthday.
You still have to fall for the prettiest girl on the playground at recess
and hope she knows you can hit a baseball
further than any boy in the whole third grade
and I've been running for home
through the windpipe of a man who sings
while his hands playing washboard with a spoon
on a street corner in New Orleans
where every boarded up window is still painted with the words
We're Coming Back
like a promise to the ocean
that we will always keep moving towards the music,
the way Basquait slept in a cardboard box to be closer to the rain.
Beauty, catch me on your tongue.
Thunder, clap us open.
The pupils in our eyes were not born to hide beneath their desks.
Tonight lay us down to rest in the Arizona desert,
then wake us washing the feet of pregnant women
who climbed across the border with their bellies aimed towards the sun.
I know a thousand things louder than a soldier's gun.
I know the heartbeat of his mother.
Don't cover your ears, Love.
Don't cover your ears, Life.
There is a boy writing poems in Central Park
and as he writes he moves
and his bones become the bars of Mandela's jail cell stretching apart,
and there are men playing chess in the December cold
who can't tell if the breath rising from the board
is their opponents or their own,
and there's a woman on the stairwell of the subway
swearing she can hear Niagara Falls from her rooftop in Brooklyn,
and I'm remembering how Niagara Falls is a city overrun
with strip malls and traffic and vendors
and one incredibly brave river that makes it all worth it.
Ya'll, I know this world is far from perfect.
I am not the type to mistake a streetlight for the moon.
I know our wounds are deep as the Atlantic.
But every ocean has a shoreline
and every shoreline has a tide
that is constantly returning
to wake the songbirds in our hands,
to wake the music in our bones,
to place one fearless kiss on the mouth of that brave river
that has to run through the center of our hearts
to find its way home.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
Open the whisky, Tom,' she ordered, 'and I'll make you a mint julep. Then you won't seem so stupid to yourself... Look at the mint!
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
“
Hunger gives flavour to the food.
”
”
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
“
She's like cold coffee in the morning
I'm drunk off last nights whisky and coke
She'll make me shiver without warning
And make me laugh as if I'm in on the joke
”
”
Ed Sheeran
“
I KNEW IT WAS OVER
when tonight you couldn't make the phone ring
when you used to make the sun rise
when trees used to throw themselves
in front of you
to be paper for love letters
that was how i knew i had to do it
swaddle the kids we never had
against january's cold slice
bundle them in winter
clothes they never needed
so i could drop them off at my mom's
even though she lives on the other side of the country
and at this late west coast hour is
assuredly east coast sleeping
peacefully
her house was lit like a candle
the way homes should be
warm and golden
and home
and the kids ran in
and jumped at the bichon frise
named lucky
that she never had
they hugged the dog
it wriggled
and the kids were happy
yours and mine
the ones we never had
and my mom was
grand maternal, which is to say, with style
that only comes when you've seen
enough to know grace
like when to pretend it's christmas or
a birthday so
she lit her voice with tiny
lights and pretended
she didn't see me crying
as i drove away
to the hotel connected to the bar
where i ordered the cheapest whisky they had
just because it shares your first name
because they don't make a whisky
called baby
and i only thought what i got
was what
i ordered
i toasted the hangover
inevitable as sun
that used to rise
in your name
i toasted the carnivals
we never went to
and the things you never won
for me
the ferris wheels we never
kissed on and all the dreams
between us
that sat there
like balloons on a carney's board
waiting to explode with passion
but slowly deflated
hung slave
under the pin-
prick of a tack
hung
heads down
like lovers
when it doesn't
work, like me
at last call
after too many cheap
too many sweet
too much
whisky makes me
sick, like the smell of cheap,
like the smell of
the dead
like the cheap, dead flowers
you never sent
that i never threw
out of the window
of a car
i never
really
owned
”
”
Daphne Gottlieb (Final Girl)
“
Nights without work I spent with whisky and books.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
“
Willy, one of the guys at the distillery, comes up with what Oliver and I agree is the best definition of what a 'dram' actually is: 'A measure of whisky that is pleasing to both guest and host.
”
”
Iain Banks
“
Horizons, cheap whisky straight from the bottle
and your hands in mine.
”
”
Charlotte Eriksson (Empty Roads & Broken Bottles: in search for The Great Perhaps)
“
Yes, life is weird, but I embrace the weird. Let everyone else go marching off into their great shining futures if they want. Me, I've always been more than content to tip my whisky bottle and take a ride straight into the heart of the spectacular now.
”
”
Tim Tharp (The Spectacular Now)
“
The principles underlying propaganda are extremely simple. Find some common desire, some widespread unconscious fear or anxiety; think out some way to relate this wish or fear to the product you have to sell; then build a bridge of verbal or pictorial symbols over which your customer can pass from fact to compensatory dream, and from the dream to the illusion that your product, when purchased, will make the dream come true. They are selling hope.
We no longer buy oranges, we buy vitality. We do not just buy an auto, we buy prestige. And so with all the rest. In toothpaste, for example, we buy not a mere cleanser and antiseptic, but release from the fear of being sexually repulsive. In vodka and whisky we are not buying a protoplasmic poison which in small doses, may depress the nervous system in a psychologically valuable way; we are buying friendliness and good fellowship, the warmth of Dingley Dell and the brilliance of the Mermaid Tavern. With our laxatives we buy the health of a Greek god. With the monthly best seller we acquire culture, the envy of our less literate neighbors and the respect of the sophisticated. In every case the motivation analyst has found some deep-seated wish or fear, whose energy can be used to move the customer to part with cash and so, indirectly, to turn the wheels of industry.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (Brave New World Revisited)
“
Some people when they see cheese, chocolate or cake they don't think of calories.
”
”
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
“
Her own hair was a glory of copper fire that morning, shining like a whisky still, long and loose in gentle flames down her back.
”
”
Elizabeth Wein (The Pearl Thief)
“
A sea of whisky couldn't intoxicate me as much as a drop of you.
”
”
J.S. Parker
“
It was necessary to keep our religious masters at St. Michael's unacquainted with the fact, that, instead of spending the Sabbath in wrestling, boxing, and drinking whisky, we were trying to learn how to read the will of God; for they had much rather see us engaged in those degrading sports, than to see us behaving like intellectual, moral, and accountable beings.
”
”
Frederick Douglass (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass)
“
As he started 'Whisky and Gin' and the cheering and the shrieking filled my senses, I thought of Mama, shattered by the war and Papa's death and I wished with all my heart that she could understand how it felt to be us that night - how it felt to be eighteen and unbeaten, eighteen and alive.
”
”
Eva Rice (The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets)
“
In wine was truth, perhaps, but in whisky, the way Hoffman sluiced it down, was an army of imaginary rats climbing your legs.
”
”
Ross Macdonald (The Chill (Lew Archer, #11))
“
I really do believe that there are those who would like and trust me better if they saw me weeping into a whisky, making a fool of myself, getting aggressive, maudlin and drunkenly out of control. I have never found those states in others anything other than tiring, awkward, embarrassing and fantastically dull, but I am quite sure that people would cherish a view of me in that condition at least once in a while.
”
”
Stephen Fry (The Fry Chronicles)
“
When you want genuine music -- music that will come right home to you like a bad quarter, suffuse your system like strychnine whisky, go right through you like Brandreth's pills, ramify your whole constitution like the measles, and break out on your hide like the pin-feather pimples on a picked goose, -- when you want all this, just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo!
”
”
Mark Twain
“
She wished it were evening now, wished for the great relief of the calendar inking itself out, of day done and night coming, of ice cubes knocking about in a glass beneath the whisky spilling in, that fine brown affirmation of need.
”
”
Michelle Latiolais (Widow: Stories)
“
I have rooted myself into this quiet place where I don’t need much to get by. I need my visions. I need my books. I need new thoughts and lessons, from older souls, bars, whisky, libraries; different ones in different towns. I need my music. I need my songs. I need the safety of somewhere to rest my head at night, when my eyes get heavy. And I need space. Lots of space. To run, and sing, and change around in any way I please—outer or inner—and I need to love. I need the space to love ideas and thoughts; creations and people—anywhere I can find—and I need the peace of mind to understand it.
”
”
Charlotte Eriksson
“
El sabor del olvido destilado sabe a ti. Y yo lo mezclo con whisky. Sobre una base de cerveza.
”
”
Escandar Algeet
“
Life’s too short for this shit,’ he had announced to his empty apartment, and that had been the end of the great whiskey experiment.
”
”
Stephen King (Insomnia)
“
The whisky burns. How strange to try to drown pain with fire.
”
”
Abraham Verghese (The Covenant of Water)
“
A dead body reminds me a bit of a bottle of whisky. If you drop the bottle and it cracks, what’s inside pours out. It’s only natural.
”
”
Yukio Mishima (Life for Sale)
“
A woman who likes her whisky,” he said while refilling her glass. “Careful that you doona steal my heart, Annalía.” “It figures that the one requirement you’d have for your woman is ‘whisky drinker.’” “Aye, but that’s only after ‘walks upright.
”
”
Kresley Cole (If You Dare (MacCarrick Brothers, #1))
“
You can never rouse Harris. There is no poetry about Harris- no wild yearning for the unattainable. Harris never "weeps, he knows not why." If Harris's eyes fill with tears, you can bet it is because Harris has been eating raw onions, or has put too much Worcester over his chop.
If you were to stand at night by the sea-shore with Harris, and say:
"Hark! do you not hear? Is it but the mermaids singing deep below the waving waters; or sad spirits, chanting dirges for white corpses held by seaweed?" Harris would take you by the arm, and say:
"I know what it is, old man; you've got a chill. Now you come along with me. I know a place round the corner here, where you can get a drop of the finest Scotch whisky you ever tasted- put you right in less than no time."
Harris always does know a place round the corner where you can get something brilliant in the drinking line. I believe that if you met Harris up in Paradise (supposing such a thing likely), he would immediately greet you with:
"So glad you've come, old fellow; I've found a nice place round the corner here, where you can get some really first-class nectar.
”
”
Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men in a Boat (Three Men, #1))
“
Why should a man help another man? No need, the world don’t care about that. World is just a passing parade of cruel moments and long drear stretches where nothing going on but chicory drinking and whisky and cards.
”
”
Sebastian Barry (Days Without End)
“
O whisky é o melhor amigo do homem, ele é o cahorro engarrafado
”
”
Vinicius de Moraes
“
A woman is like fine whisky. Deep and subtle, smooth but strong, warm yet lingering.
”
”
Wan-Ling, Wong (Time to live: Jannie Tay's journey)
“
I feel like girls who drink whisky tell good stories.
”
”
Atticus Poetry
“
She had the whisky licking, skinny dipping smile.
”
”
Atticus Poetry
“
Some nights you drink tea, some nights you drink whisky.
”
”
Atticus Poetry
“
Wine is fine. But whisky is quicker.
”
”
Hank Moody
“
My room is a grave yard of whisky bottles in a swamp of stale beer, cigar ashes, and dick jokes.
”
”
Vincent Brooks
“
Sometimes all you need is to climb a simple hill, to spend time staring at an empty horizon, to jump into a cold river or sleep under the stars, or perhaps share a whisky at a small country inn in order to remind yourself what matters most to you in life.
”
”
Alastair Humphreys (Microadventures: Local Discoveries for Great Escapes)
“
(On Baron von Blixen:)
Six feet of amiable Swede and, to my knowledge, the toughest, most durable White Hunter ever to snicker at the fanfare of safari or to shoot a charging buffalo between the eyes while debating whether his sundown drink will be gin or whisky.
”
”
Beryl Markham (West with the Night)
“
Girls like her, my grandfather once warned me, girls like her turn into women with eyes like bullet holes and mouths made of knives. They are always restless. They are always hungry. They are bad news. They will drink you down like a shot of whisky. Falling in love with them is like falling down a flight of stairs.
”
”
Holly Black (Black Heart (Curse Workers, #3))
“
And, oh yes, I did see Nessie! But that was much later on after a late evening that involved several pints and more than my share of Scapa Flow whisky. Nice girl. Pretty face. Longish neck. Not much in the leg department.
”
”
Ian MacGregger (The Toast of Broadway: An Omega-AlphaThriller (The Cabal Book 1))
“
I thought,” he said, “that if the world was going to end we were meant to lie down or put a paper bag over our head or something.”
“If you like, yes,” said Ford.
“That’s what they told us in the army,” said the man, and his eyes began the long trek back down to his whisky.
“Will that help?” asked the barman.
“No,” said Ford and gave him a friendly smile.
”
”
Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1))
“
When whisky talks it rarely counsels prudence.
”
”
Anthony McDonald (Matches in the Dark: 13 Tales of Gay Men)
“
uncomfortably conscious that women of her age did not generally hide in cupboards drinking whisky
”
”
Clara Benson (The Incident at Fives Castle (Angela Marchmont Mystery #5))
“
Bottles of Goblin Whisky - ‘Johnny Ain’t Walking Anywhere
”
”
Tony Corden (Odyssey (The Stork Tower, #2))
“
A fine single malt whisky, of course, is purely medicinal - it cures all manner of ailments one may care to imagine.
”
”
Alex Morritt (Impromptu Scribe)
“
While I can’t walk on water, I can certainly wobble on whisky.
”
”
Ashwin Sanghi
“
Perhaps I would like a glass of whisky. Yes, that seems more likely.
”
”
Douglas Adams (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #2))
“
But Siegfried held up a restraining hand. “Just one moment,” he slurred. “The windscreen is very dirty. I’ll give it a rub for you.” The ladies watched him silently as he weaved round to the back of the car and began to rummage in the boot. The love light had died from their eyes. I don’t know why he took the trouble; possibly it was because, through the whisky mists, he felt he must re-establish himself as a competent and helpful member of the party. But the effort fell flat; the effect was entirely spoiled. He was polishing the glass with a dead hen.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1-2))
“
The conspicuous fault of the Jeffersonian Party, like the personal fault of Senator Trowbridge, was that it represented integrity and reason, in a year when the electorate hungered for frisky emotions, for the peppery sensations associated, usually, not with monetary systems and taxation rates but with baptism by immersion in the creek, young love under the elms, straight whisky, angelic orchestras heard soaring down from the full moon, fear of death when an automobile teeters above a canyon, thirst in a desert and quenching it with spring water—all the primitive sensations which they thought they found in the screaming of Buzz Windrip.
”
”
Sinclair Lewis (It Can't Happen Here)
“
That night, Tom took a bottle of whisky, and went to watch the stars from near the cliff. The breeze played on his face as he traced the constellations, and tasted the burn of the liquid. He turned his attention to the rotation of the beam, and gave a bitter laugh at the thought that the dip of the light meant that the island itself was always left in darkness. A lighthouse is for others; powerless to illuminate the space closest to it.
”
”
M.L. Stedman (The Light Between Oceans)
“
I couldn’t believe it when I learned that people actually ‘practised the occult’. These freaks with white make-up and black robes would come up to us after our gigs and invite us to black masses at Highgate Cemetery in London. I’d say to them, ‘Look, mate, the only evil spirits I’m interested in are called whisky, vodka and gin.’
”
”
Ozzy Osbourne (I Am Ozzy)
“
To her own heart, which was shaped exactly like a valentine, there came a winglike palpitation, a delicate exigency, and all the fragrance of all the flowery springtime love affairs that ever were seemed waiting for them in the whisky bottle. To mingle their pain their handshake had promised them, was to produce a separate entity, like a child that could shift for itself, and they scrambled hastily toward this profound and pastoral experience.
”
”
Jean Stafford (The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford)
“
. . . you know who Polworth is?"
"Your best mate," said Robin.
"He's my oldest mate," Strike corrected her. "My best mate . . . "
For a split second he wondered whether he was going to say it, but the whisky had lifted the guard he usually kept upon himself: why not say it, why not let go?
" . . . is you."
Robin was so amazed, she couldn't speak. Never, in four years, had Strike come close to telling her what she was to him. Fondness had had to be deduced from offhand comments, small kindnesses, awkward silences or gestures forced from him under stress. She'd only once before felt as she did now, and the unexpected gift that had engendered the feeling had been a sapphire and diamond ring, which she'd left behind when she walked out on the man who'd given it to her.
She wanted to make some kind of return, but for a moment or two, her throat felt too constricted.
"I . . . well, the feeling's mutual," she said, trying not to sound too happy.
”
”
Robert Galbraith (Troubled Blood (Cormoran Strike, #5))
“
He took three shots a night-no more, no less.
He switched from whisky to straight gin. The bum compensated for the scant volume.
Three shots tweaked his hatreds. Four shots and up cut those hatreds all the way loose.
Three shots said, You project danger. Four shots or more said, You're ugly and you limp.
”
”
James Ellroy (American Tabloid (Underworld USA #1))
“
Suddenly he smiled, and the sadness was vanquished by whisky heat. “Aye, Jessica, I like you. And I’m not just stuck with you. You fit me here, woman.” He thumped his chest with his fist. Then he shook her hand from his forearm and pushed off with the cart again. Jessi watched him move down the aisle, all sleek animal muscle and dark grace.
Wow. He wasn’t a man of many words, but when he used them, he certainly used the right ones.
You fit me here. You are the exception to everything.
Crimeny.
It was how she’d always thought a relationship should be. People should fit each other: some
days like sexy, strappy high-heeled shoes, other days like comfortable loafers—but always a good fit. And if you cared about someone, they should be the exception to everything; the number-one priority, the one who came before all others.
He was halfway down the aisle from her now, plucking a
can from the shelf—her primal hunter/gatherer procuring food by modern means, she thought, with a soft snort of amusement.
”
”
Karen Marie Moning (Spell of the Highlander (Highlander, #7))
“
GONE TO STATIC
it sounds better than it is,
this business of surviving,
making it through
the wrong place
at the wrong time
and living
to tell.
when the talk shows and movie credits
wear off, it's just me and my dumb
luck. this morning
I had that dream again:
the one where I'm dead.
I wake up and nothing's
much different. everything's gone
sepia, a dirty bourbon glass
by the bed, you're
still dead.
I could stumble
to the shower,
scrub the luck of breath off my skin
but it's futile.
the killer always wins.
it's just a matter
of time.
and I have
time. I have grief and liquor to
fill it. tonight, the liquor and I are
talking to you. the liquor says, 'remember'
and I fill in the rest, your hands, your smile.
all those times. remember.
tonight the liquor and I
are telling you about our day.
we made it out of bed. we miss you.
we were surprised by the blood between
our legs. we miss you. we made it to the video
store, missing you. we stopped
at the liquor store
hoping the bourbon would stop
the missing. there's always more
bourbon, more missing
tonight, when we got home,
there was a stray cat
at the door.
she came in.
she screams to be touched.
she screams
when I touch her.
she's right
at home.
not me.
the whisky is open
the vcr is on.
I'm running
the film backwards
and one by one
you come back to me,
all of you.
your pulses stutter to a begin
your eyes go from fixed to blink
the knives come out of your chests, the chainsaws
roar out
from your legs
your wounds seal over
your t-cells multiply, your tumors shrink
the maniac killer
disappears
it's just you and me
and the bourbon and the movie
flickering together
and the air breathes us and I
am home, I am
lucky
I am right
before everything
goes black
”
”
Daphne Gottlieb (Final Girl)
“
A cask of whisky slipped from the hoisting gear, broke on the roof of a transit shed, and poured all over MacRae. He's ready to murder someone - which is why I brought him up here to you."
Despite her concern, Merritt let out a snort of laughter. "Luke Marsden, are you planning to hide behind my skirts while I confront the big, mean Scotsman?"
"Absolutely," he said without hesitation. "You like them big and mean.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Disguise (The Ravenels, #7))
“
Superficially my war was a comfortable exercise in futility carried out in a grand Scottish hotel amongst the bridge players and swillers of easy-come-by whisky. My chest got me out of active service and into guilt, as I wrote two, or is it three of the novels for which I am now acclaimed.
”
”
Patrick White (Three Uneasy Pieces)
“
Girls like her, my grandfather once warned me, girls like her turn into women with eyes like bullet holes and mouths made of knives. They are always restless. They are always hungry. They are bad news. They will drink you down like a shot
of whisky. Falling in love with them is like falling down a flight of stairs. What no one told me, with all those warnings, is that even after you’ve fallen, even after you know how painful it is, you’d still get in line to do it again.
A girl like that, Grandad said, perfumes herself with ozone and metal filings. She wears trouble like a crown. If she ever falls in love, she’ll fall like a comet, burning the sky as she goes.
She was the epic crush of my childhood. She was the tragedy that made me look inside myself and see my corrupt heart. She was my sin and my salvation, come back from the grave to change me forever. Again. Back then, when she sat on my bed and told me she loved me, I wanted her as much as I have ever wanted anything.
There are no words for how much I will miss her, but I try to kiss her so that she’ll know. I try to kiss her to tell her the whole story of my love, the way I dreamed of her when she was dead, the way that every other girl seemed like a mirror that showed me her face. The way my skin ached for her. The way that kissing her made me feel like I was drowning and like I was being saved all at the same time. I hope she can taste all that, bittersweet, on my tongue.
”
”
Holly Black (Black Heart (Curse Workers, #3))
“
When Sophie had first learned to read, Charles had kept the whisky in a bottle labeled CAT'S URINE, so that Sophie would not touch it, but she had uncorked the bottle and sipped it, and then sniffed at the underside of the cat next door. They were not at all similar, though equally unpleasant.
”
”
Katherine Rundell
“
You have to try everything, for consumerist man is haunted by the fear of 'missing' something, some form of enjoyment or other. You never know whether a particular encounter, a particular experience (Christmas in the Canaries, eel in whisky, the Prado, LSD, Japanese-style love-making) will not elicit some 'sensation'. It is no longer desire, or even 'taste', or a specific inclination that are at stake, but a generalized curiosity, driven by a vague sense of unease - it is the 'fun morality' or the imperative to enjoy oneself, to exploit to the full one's potential for thrills pleasure or gratification.
”
”
Jean Baudrillard (The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures)
“
I let myself into the cellar, locked the door behind me. The cellar was cold. I found the whisky, let myself out of the cellar and locked it, turned all the lights out, gave Mrs McSpadden the bottle, accepted a belated new-year kiss from her, then made my way out through the kitchen and the corridor and the crowded hall where the music sounded loud and people were laughing, and out through the now almost empty entrance hall and down the steps of the castle and down the driveway and down to Gallanach, where I walked along the esplanade - occasionally having to wave to say 'Happy New Year' to various people I didn't know - until I got to the old railway pier and then the harbour, where I sat on the quayside, legs dangling, drinking my whisky and watching a couple of swans glide on black, still water, to the distant sound of highland jigs coming from the Steam Packet Hotel, and singing and happy-new-year shouts echoing in the streets of the town, and the occasional sniff as my nose watered in sympathy with my eyes.
”
”
Iain Banks (The Crow Road)
“
I began to realize how simple life could be if one had a regular routine to follow with fixed hours and a fixed salary and very little original thinking to do. The life of a writer is absolute hell compared with the life of a businessman. The writer has to force himself to work. He has to make his own hours and if he doesn’t go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him. If he is a writer of fiction he lives in a world of fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not. Two hours of writing fiction leaves this particular writer absolutely drained. For those two hours he has been miles away, he has been somewhere else, in a different place with totally different people, and the effort of swimming back into normal surroundings is very great. It is almost a shock. The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks more whisky than is good for him. He does it to give himself faith, hope and courage. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.
”
”
Roald Dahl (Boy: Tales of Childhood (Roald Dahl's Autobiography, #1))
“
Saul stared at his Whisky Sour. He hadn’t heard from Zoe in about a week. Maybe she had lost interest.
All at once, the room was filled with people laughing, talking about how wonderful it was to be a couple. He was mildly amused at how disconcerting being alone felt. He had met Zoe about a month ago, when he helped her cross a busy boulevard. Yet, it seemed like he had known her for years.
He stepped outside to call and leave another message.
”
”
Michael Ben Zehabe
“
Can I ask you something?" asks Will, after a while.
The man sips his whisky instead of answering.
Will asks the question anyway. "Have you ever been in love?"
The man places his glass down and stares at Will, steel-eyed. The expected reaction, "Once," he responds , the word just a croak from the back of his throat.
Will nods. "It's always just once, isn't it? The rest..they're just echoes
”
”
Matt Haig (The Radleys)
“
Ordering drinks always floored me. I didn't know whisky from gin and
never managed to get anything I really liked the taste of. Buddy Willard and
the other college boys I knew were usually too poor to buy hard liquor or
they scorned drinking altogether. It's amazing how many college boys don't
drink or smoke. I seemed to know them all. The farthest Buddy Willard ever
went was buying us a bottle of Dubonnet, which he only did because he was
trying to prove he could be aesthetic in spite of being a medical student.
"I'll have a vodka," I said.
The man looked at me more closely. "With anything?"
"Just plain," I said. "I always have it plain."
I thought I might make a fool of myself by saying I'd have it with ice
or gin or anything. I'd seen a vodka ad once, just a glass full of vodka
standing in the middle of a snowdrift in a blue light, and the vodka looked
clear and pure as water, so I thought having vodka plain must be all right.
My dream was someday ordering a drink and finding out it tasted wonderful.
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)
“
I had zero idea of what I was doing.. I honestly had no idea where to start. All I knew was I had something I craved to say.. I wanted to create art that lived on longer than I do. Perseverance and teaching yourself, every day through stress and hard work proves shit really does progress without you realizing. One minute you're an amateur, knowing nothing, not even the basics. The next you can put pen to paper, write a song, and create art in such little time! It's crazy beautiful.
”
”
scott mcgoldrick
“
Indian Creek, in its whole length, flows through a magnificent forest. There dwells on its shore a tribe of Indians, a remnant of the Chickasaws or Chickopees, if I remember rightly. They live in simple huts, ten or twelve feet square, constructed of pine poles and covered with bark. They subsist principally on the flesh of the deer, the coon, and opossum, all of which are plenty in these woods. Sometimes they exchange venison for a little corn and whisky with the planters on the bayous. Their usual dress is buckskin breeches and calico hunting shirts of fantastic colors, buttoned from belt to chin. They wear brass rings on their wrists, and in their ears and noses. The dress of the squaws is very similar.
”
”
Solomon Northup (Twelve Years a Slave)
“
Young people," McDonald said contemptuously. "You always think there's something to find out."
"Yes, sir," Andrews said.
"Well, there's nothing," McDonald said. "You get born, and you nurse on lies, and you get weaned on lies, and you learn fancier lies in school. You live all your life on lies, and then maybe when you're ready to die, it comes to you--that there's nothing, nothing but yourself and what you could have done. Only you ain't done it, because the lies told you there was something else. Then you know you could of had the world, because you're the only one that knows the secret; only then it's too late. You're too old."
"No," Andrews said. A vague terror crept from the darkness that surrounded them, and tightened his voice. "That's not the way it is."
"You ain't learned, then," McDonald said. "You ain't learned yet....look. You spend nearly a year of your life and sweat, because you have faith in the dream of a fool. And what have you got? Nothing. You kill three, four thousand buffalo, and stack their skins neat; and the buffalo will rot wherever you left them, and the rats will nest in the skins. What have you got to show? A year gone out of your life, a busted wagon that a beaver might use to make a dam with, some calluses on your hands, and the memory of a dead man."
"No," Andrew said. "That's not all. That's not all I have."
"Then what? What have you got?"
Andrews was silent.
"You can't answer. Look at Miller. Knows the country he was in as well as any man alive, and had faith in what he believed was true. What good did it do him? And Charley Hoge with his Bible and his whisky. Did that make your winter any easier, or save your hides? And Schneider. What about Schneider? Was that his name?
"That was his name," Andrews said.
"And that's all that's left of him," McDonald said. "His name. And he didn't even come out of it with that for himself." McDonald nodded, not looking at Andrews. "Sure, I know. I came out of it with nothing, too. Because I forgot what I learned a long time ago. I let the lies come back. I had a dream, too, and because it was different from yours and Miller's, I let myself think it wasn't a dream. But now I know, boy. And you don't. And that makes all the difference.
”
”
John Williams (Butcher's Crossing)
“
I'm looking for something and I don't quite know what it is. But I know that it's very important for me to know it, and if I did it would make all the difference. Perhaps the nuns know it; when I'm with them I feel that they hold a secret which they will not share with me. I don't know why it came into my head that if I saw this Manchu woman I should have an inkling of what I am looking for. Perhaps she would tell me if she could."
"What makes you think she knows it?"
Kitty gave him a sidelong glance, but did not answer. Instead she asked him a question.
"Do you know it?"
He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
"Tao. Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whisky and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither.
”
”
W. Somerset Maugham (The Painted Veil)
“
This was the neighborhood of the cheap addicts, whisky-heads, stumblebums, the flotsam of Harlem; the end of the line for the whores, the hard squeeze for the poor honest laborers and a breeding ground for crime. Blank-eyed whores stood on the street corners swapping obscenities with twitching junkies. Muggers and thieves slouched in dark doorways waiting for someone to rob; but there wasn't anyone but each other. Children ran down the street, the dirty street littered with rotting vegetables, uncollected garbage, battered garbage cans, broken glass, dog offal — always running, ducking and dodging. God help them if they got caught. Listless mothers stood in the dark entrances of tenements and swapped talk about their men, their jobs, their poverty, their hunger, their debts, their Gods, their religions, their preachers, their children, their aches and pains, their bad luck with the numbers and the evilness of white people. Workingmen staggered down the sidewalks filled with aimless resentment, muttering curses, hating to go to their hotbox hovels but having nowhere else to go.
”
”
Chester Himes
“
How could he say, look, I've tried not to fancy you since you first took your coat off in this office. I try not to give names to what I feel for you, because I already know it's too much, and I want peace from the shit that love brings in its wake. I want to be alone, and unburdened, and free.
But I don't want you to be with anyone else. I don't want some other bastard to persuade you into a second marriage. I like knowing the possibility's there, for us to, maybe . . .
Except, it'll go wrong, of course, because it always goes wrong, because if I were the type for permanence, I'd already be married. And when it goes wrong, I'll lose you for good, and this thing we've built together, which is literally the only good part of my life, my vocation, my pride, my greatest achievement, will be forever fucked, because I won't find anyone I enjoy running things with, the way I enjoy running them with you, and everything afterward will be tainted by the memory of you.
If only she could come inside his head and see what was there, Strike thought, she'd understand that she occupied a unique place in his thoughts and in his affections. He felt he owed her that information, but was afraid that saying it might move this conversation into territory from which it would be difficult to retreat.
But from second to second, sitting here, now with more than half a bottle of neat whisky inside him, a different spirit seemed to move inside him, asking himself for the first time whether determined solitude was what he really wanted, for evermore.
”
”
Robert Galbraith (Troubled Blood (Cormoran Strike, #5))
“
For the liquor of Miss Amelia has a special quality of its own. It is clean and sharp on the tongue, but once down a man it glows inside him for a long time afterward. And that is not all. It is known that if a message is written with lemon juice on a clean sheet of paper there will be no sign of it. But if the paper is held for a moment to the fire then the letters turn brown and the meaning becomes clear. Imagine that the whisky is the fire and that the message is that which is known only in the soul of a man – then the worth of Miss Amelia's liquor can be understood. Things that have gone unnoticed, thoughts that have been harbored far back in the dark mind, are suddenly recognized and comprehended. A spinner who has thought only of the loom, the dinner pail, the bed, and then the loom again – this spinner might drink some on a Sunday and come across a marsh lily. And in his palm he might hold this flower, examining the golden dainty cup, and in him suddenly might come a sweetness keen as pain. A weaver might look up suddenly and see for the first time the cold, weird radiance of midnight January sky, and a deep fright at his own smallness stop his heart. Such things as these, then, happen when a man has drunk Miss Amelia's liquor. He may suffer, or he may be spent with joy – but the experience has shown the truth; he has warmed his soul and seen the message hidden there.
”
”
Carson McCullers (The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories)
“
In the end the secrecy of your revolt poisons you like a secret disease. Your whole life is a life of lies. Year after year you sit in Kipling-haunted little Clubs, whisky to right of you, Pink’un to left of you, listening and eagerly agreeing while Colonel Bodger develops his theory that these bloody Nationalists should be boiled in oil. You hear your Oriental friends called ‘greasy Little babus’, and you admit, dutifully, that they are greasy little babus. You see louts fresh from school kicking grey-haired servants. The time comes when you burn with hatred of your own countrymen, when you long for a native rising to drown their Empire in blood. And in this there is nothing honourable, hardly even any sincerity. For, au fond, what do you care if the Indian Empire is a despotism, if Indians are bullied and exploited? You only care because the right of free speech is denied you. You are a creature of the despotism, a pukka sahib, tied tighter than a monk or a savage by an unbreakable system of taboos.
”
”
George Orwell (Burmese Days)
“
Cezary már jó ideje a háttérből irányított.
Habár a rendszerváltás utáni zavaros időszak egyik legveszélyesebb és leggátlástalanabb figurája volt, akit Kelet-Európa-szerte ismertek és rettegtek alvilági körökben, a kellő pillanatban öltönyös
üzletemberré vedlett át, és kikérte volna magának, ha valaki közönséges gengszternek titulálja. Igyekezett észrevétlen maradni, és ahelyett, hogy lépten-nyomon erőt demonstrált volna, inkább kapcsolatokat épített. Már jó ideje nem erőszakkal, hanem a megfelelő gazdasági és politikai alkuk megkötésével érvényesítette az akaratát. Csak nagyon keveseknek sikerült talpon maradni az idők folyamán a hozzá hasonló figurák közül. Cezary azonban kitűnően lavírozott a rendszerváltozás utáni évtizedek szinte követhetetlenül változó gazdasági, pénzügyi, és politikai világában. Egyik titka tulajdonképpen a kitűnő helyzetfelismerő képessége és alkalmazkodókészsége volt. Ha az ember képes alkalmazkodni, az ajtók nem záródnak be előtte, sőt, újabbak és újabbak nyílnak meg előtte. Azok a figurák, akik Kelet-Európa-szerte Cezaryhoz hasonló módon építették fel a maguk birodalmát, éppen azzal hibáztak a legnagyobbat, ha nem érzékelték a változást, vagy nem voltak hajlandóak alkalmazkodni, és ugyanazokkal a módszerekkel dolgoztak tovább, és ugyanazt az életvitelt folytatták, amelyet a kilencvenes években. Az efféle alakok közül sokaknak széthullott a birodalma, mert képtelenek voltak a háttérbe húzódva élni, látványosan szórták a pénzt, mindenáron fitogtatni akarták a hatalmukat, és nem vették észre, hogy már nem a vadkeleten élnek. Azt hitték, hogy néhány rendőrtiszt, politikus, bíró megkenésével, vagy néhány befolyásos ember megfélemlítésével a végtelenségig folytathatják kétes üzelmeiket. Csakhogy az idők változtak. Időközben a konfliktusok megoldásának módja már nem az ellenség autóinak felrobbantása volt, az alkuk a háttérben köttettek öltönybe bújt üzletemberek között. Cezary legfontosabb emberei már régen nem maffiózók, vagy véreskezű gengszterek benyomását keltették, éppen ellenkezőleg, kétes üzleteik, tisztességtelen módszereik, és a kezük között forgó mocskos pénz ellenére is, egy külső szemlélő számára aligha
különböztek egy multinacionális cég vezetőjétől, vagy egy kiváló pedigréjű bankigazgatótól.
A Cezaryhoz hasonló birodalmak urai már nem állig felfegyverzett, megtermett, morcos tekintetű fickókkal végeztették a munka javát, hanem a Maksymilian és Miłosz-féle, több nyelven
beszélő, elegáns zakóba bújt alakokkal, akik egy pohár whisky és egy szivar mellett, zárt ajtók mögött kötötték meg az alkukat, ahelyett
lyett, hogy lövöldöztek volna, vagy autókat robbantgattak volna.
Persze a kellő erő megmaradt a háttérben, és ha szükség volt rá, be is vetették a megfelelő módon, helyen, és időben, de azzal tisztában voltak, hogy az erő látványos, ész nélküli fitogtatása manapság
többet árt, mint használ.
Cezarynak tulajdonképpen minden adottsága meg is volt ahhoz, hogy a körülmények megváltozásával kifinomultabban játsszon. Mestere volt a manipulációnak, mások kijátszásának és megvezetésének, és annak, hogyan hozzon függőségbe magától másokat. Sikerének egyik kulcsa éppen ez volt. A ravaszsága, a kíméletlensége, kiegészülve a szerencsével, hiszen ő aztán kétség kívül elmondhatta magáról, hogy jókor volt jó helyen. A kilencvenes évek Kelet-Európája, melyben ő is kinőtte magát, tökéletes
táptalajt biztosított a hozzá hasonló alakoknak. Manapság már lehetetlen lett volna hasonló pályát befutni.
”
”
Mercèdes Rheinberger (Ártatlan vagyok)
“
Through these days Bunny made increasingly frequent and protracted visits to the bathroom, beating off with a single-minded savagery intense even by Bunny's standards. Now, sitting on the sofa with a large Scotch, his cock feels and looks like something that has been involved in a terrible accident - a cartoon hotdog, maybe, that has made an unsuccessful attempt to cross a busy road.
The boy sits beside him and the two of them are locked in a parenthesis of mutual zonkedness. Bunny Junior stares blankly at the encyclopedia open in his lap. His father watches the television, smokes his fag and drinks his whisky, like an automaton.
After a time, Bunny turns his head and looks at his son and clocks the way he stares at his weird encyclopedia. He sees him but he can't really believe he is there. What does this kid want? What is he supposed to do with him? Who is he? Bunny feels like an extinct volcano, lifeless and paralysed. Yeah, he thinks, I feel like an extinct volcano - with a weird little kid to look after and a mangled sausage for a dick.
”
”
Nick Cave (The Death of Bunny Munro)
“
No, Pasha,” whispered Alexander. “No.” He felt Pasha’s head. He closed Pasha’s eyes. For a few moments he stood over Pasha, and then he sank to the ground. Wrapping him tightly with the trench coat, Alexander took Pasha’s body into his arms and, cradling him from the cold, closed his own eyes. For the rest of the night Alexander sat on an empty road, his back against the tree, not moving, not opening his eyes, not speaking, holding Tatiana’s brother in his arms. If Ouspensky spoke to him, he did not hear. If he slept, he did not feel it, not the cold air, nor the hard ground, nor the rough bark of the tree against his back, against his head. When morning broke, and gray close light rose over Saxony, Alexander opened his eyes. Ouspensky was sleeping on his side, wrapped in his trench coat next to them. Pasha’s body was rigid, very cold. Alexander got up from under Pasha, washed his own face with whisky, rinsed out his mouth with whisky, and then got his titanium trench tool and started to carve a hole in the ground. Ouspensky woke up, helped him. It took them three hours of scraping at the earth, to make a hole a meter deep. Not deep enough, but it would have to do. Alexander covered Pasha’s face with the trench coat so the earth wouldn’t fall on it. With two small branches and a piece of string, Alexander made a cross and laid it on top of Pasha’s chest, and then they lifted him and lowered him into the hole, and Alexander, his teeth grit the entire time, filled the shallow grave with fresh dirt. On a wide thick branch, he carved out the name PASHA METANOV, and the date, Feb 25, 1945, and tying it to another longer branch made another cross and staked it into the ground. Alexander and Ouspensky
”
”
Paullina Simons (Tatiana and Alexander (The Bronze Horseman, #2))
“
Whey protein Whey protein has got more bad press than whisky, gin, rum, wine, beer, and even grass. Whey protein is a powder made from milk which you mix with water to turn into a drink. It has the best biological value of protein; which means that almost every gram of whey you consume gets used for its intended purpose and is absorbed by the body. Whey isolate, made from whey protein is a boon for lactose intolerant vegetarians like me as it doesn’t irritate the stomach or the intestines. Whey protein has been accused of affecting the kidney, liver and heart but this isn’t true. Although superstars, cricketers and doctors advertise for the so called ‘Protein drinks’, (especially for children, easy targets perhaps, not to mention their parents’ obsession with their height), the reality is that these drinks are so loaded in sugar and have such miniscule amounts of protein (not to mention poor biological value too) that they really do much more harm than any good. And a nutrient is never specifically beneficial for a particular age group. Whey protein on the other hand is easy on the system, has zero sugar, and is easy to digest. If you weight train regularly or run long distances, whey protein will become a necessity. (It also comes in all flavours: chocolate, vanilla, strawberry and many more.) Word of caution: whey protein is a supplement. It is not supposed to be used as an alternative to eating correctly. Consuming adequate protein, carbs and fat by means of a well-balanced diet is a must. Only then can whey protein be of any help. Like with everything else, if you overdo it or depend on it alone to provide you with protein, you stand to lose out on its considerable benefits.
”
”
Rujuta Diwekar (Don'T Lose Your Mind, Lose Your Weight)
“
And they were always young, Air Corps pilots and ensigns, and good-looking girls in fur coats, and always the government secretary or two, the working girl as a carry-over from the fraternity parties when she was always the girl who could be made because in some mysterious way the women of the lower classes could be depended upon to copulate like jack rabbits. And they all knew they were going to die soon with a sentimental and unstated English attitude which was completely phony. It came from books they had never read, and movies they shouldn’t have seen; it was fed by the tears of their mothers, and the knowledge quite shocking, quite unbelievable, that a lot of them did die when they went overseas. Its origins were spurious; they never could connect really the romance of their impending deaths with the banal mechanical process of flying an airplane and landing and living in the barren eventless Army camps that surrounded their airfields. But nevertheless they had discovered it was a talisman, they were going to die soon, and they wore it magically until you believed in it when you were with them. And they did magical things like pouring whisky on each other’s hair, or setting mattresses afire, or grabbing hats on the fly from the heads of established businessmen. Of all the parties those were perhaps the best, but he had come to them too old.
”
”
Norman Mailer (The Naked and the Dead)
“
Rhys cleared his throat and tugged on his cravat. “I wanted to ask you something.”
“Yes?” St. Clare livened up immediately as he took a sip of whisky.
“Do you treat your wife like your mistress?”
St. Clare raised a brow. Any other man would be sputtering his drink out of his mouth in surprise at the question. Not St. Clare. “No, I treat my wife a lot better than I have ever treated any of my mistresses.”
“That’s not exactly what I mean….” Rhys cleared his throat again.
“Then what do you mean?”
Rhys scratched his temple. “I mean in bed.”
“Oh…” Gabriel scowled. “I do not think I follow.”
“Well, I mean… All the depraved things you did with your mistresses, do you do them to your wife?”
Gabriel raised his brow. “If by depraved, you mean whether I pleasure my wife in every way I have learned how then yes. And she does the same for me.”
“You let her—”
“I let her do anything she wants to do to me and then teach her to do even more,” he added with a wink.
Rhys tugged on his cravat again in agitation. “What I mean is… I’ve heard time and time again that ladies are delicate creatures who cannot withstand arduous pursuits… There are things that are indecent—”
“Let me stop you right there, my dear, virtuous friend. What you think is indecent, I do to my wife every morning before breakfast. And what you call degrading or embarrassing, I call Tuesday.” He finished his drink and slammed the glass onto the desk. “There is no such thing as indecent between a husband and a wife. The only thing indecent is a cold marriage bed. Take it from a former rake.
”
”
Sadie Bosque (An Offer from the Marquess (Necessary Arrangements, #4))
“
Tell me, Mar,” she would say (and here it must be explained, that when she called him by the first syllable of his first name, she was in a dreamy, amorous, acquiescent mood, domestic, languid a little, as if spiced logs were burning, and it was evening, yet not time to dress, and a thought wet perhaps outside, enough to make the leaves glisten, but a nightingale might be singing even so among the azaleas, two or three dogs barking at distant farms, a cock crowing—all of which the reader should imagine in her voice)—“Tell me, Mar,” she would say, “about Cape Horn.” Then Shelmerdine would make a little model on the ground of the Cape with twigs and dead leaves and an empty snail shell or two. “Here’s the north,” he would say. “There’s the south. The wind’s coming from hereabouts. Now the Brig is sailing due west; we’ve just lowered the top-boom mizzen; and so you see—here, where this bit of grass is, she enters the current which you’ll find marked—where’s my map and compasses, Bo’sun?—Ah! thanks, that’ll do, where the snail shell is. The current catches her on the starboard side, so we must rig the jib boom or we shall be carried to the larboard, which is where that beech leaf is,—for you must understand my dear—” and so he would go on, and she would listen to every word; interpreting them rightly, so as to see, that is to say, without his having to tell her, the phosphorescence on the waves, the icicles clanking in the shrouds; how he went to the top of the mast in a gale; there reflected on the destiny of man; came down again; had a whisky and soda; went on shore; was trapped by a black woman; repented; reasoned it out; read Pascal; determined to write philosophy; bought a monkey; debated the true end of life; decided in favour of Cape Horn, and so on. All this and a thousand other things she understood him to say and so when she replied, Yes, negresses are seductive, aren’t they? he having told her that the supply of biscuits now gave out, he was surprised and delighted to find how well she had taken his meaning. “Are you positive you aren’t a man?” he would ask anxiously, and she would echo, “Can it be possible you’re not a woman?” and then they must put it to the proof without more ado.
”
”
Virginia Woolf (Orlando: A Biography)