“There are no fights in Ireland, people just get so drunk they go, "GODDAMN, YA SONOFABITCH!" and pass out. And there's no Alcoholics Anonymous there, because if there's a meeting, it's always at the bar,”

“A literary academic can no more pass a bookstore than an alcoholic can pass a bar.”

“Complaining that a comic is drunk is like going to a titty bar and complaining because your lapdancer is a communist.”

“Sometimes I just think depression's one way of coping with the world. Like, some people get drunk, some people do drugs, some people get depressed. Because there's so much stuff out there that you have to do something to deal with it.”

“Alcohol make you drunk, man. It don't make you meditate, it just make you drunk. Herb is more a consciousness.”

“Most heterosexual people in this country, and around the world, meet each other, and get together with one another when they’re totally, totally drunk. Smashed out of their minds they could not spell their own face. And they go home with that person! And you might spend months with that person, or a year, or you might have a family! This is what happens, this is how you meet. But you wouldn’t buy a toaster when you’re drunk, ‘cause that’s too important. It's got to be crispy in just the right way, hasn't it?”

“This is a cardinal Ya-Ya rule: you must meet each person's eyes while clinking glasses in a toast. Otherwise, the ritual has no meaning, it's just pure show. And that is something the Ya-Yas are not.”

“One time I was in the men's room of the bar and there was a guy at the urinal. He was kind of drunk, and said to me in a mean-sounding voice, "I don't like your face. I think I'll push it in."I was scared green. I replied in an equally mean voice, "Get out of my way, or I'll pee right through ya!"”

“I went to the worst of bars hoping to get killed but all I could do was to get drunk again.”

“But you know, my mom having to go to the hospital seven times… like passed out because of pain… I wouldn't come home and sit with my family and be with my dad - I'd call someone up and… I'd go and get obliterated drunk and I'd go, like, on two-week benders.”