“She [Elizabeth Taylor] never reads a book, at least not more than a couple of pages at a time… I have always been a heavy drinker but now as a result of this half-life we've been leading I am drinking twice as much. The upshot will be that I'll die of drink while she'll go blithely on in her half-world.”

“Drink, my jolly lads, drink with discerning,
Wedlock's a lane where there is no turning;
Never was owl more blind than a lover,
Drink and be merry, lads, half seas over.”

“This was the time in her life that she fell upon books as the only door out of her cell. They became half her world.”

“Basler finds my Lincoln the 'phoniest historical novel I have ever had the pleasure of reading.'… Also, 'more than half the book could never have happened as told.' Unfortunately, he doesn't say which half. If I knew, we could then cut it free from the phony half and publish the result as Basler's Vidal's Lincoln.”

“Fhairshon had a son,
Who married Noah's daughter,
And nearly spoiled ta Flood,
By drinking up the water.

Which he would have done,
I at least pelieve it,
Had the mixture been
Only half Glenlivet.”

“I found some consolation or narcotic. Sometimes it was a woman, sometimes a good friend — yes, you too once helped me that way — at other times it was music or applause in the theater. But now these things no longer give me pleasure and that is why I drink. I could never sing without first having a couple of drinks, but now I can also not think, talk, live and feel tolerably well without first having a couple of drinks.”

“I would sooner read a time-table or a catalogue than nothing at all. … They are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written.”

“I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy”

“She was my dream. She made me who I am, and holding her in my arms was more natural to me than my own heartbeat. I think about her all the time. Even now, when I'm sitting here, I think about her. There could never have been another.”

“Beirut is the Elizabeth Taylor of cities: insane, beautiful, falling apart, aging, and forever drama laden. She'll also marry any infatuated suitor who promises to make her life more comfortable, no matter how inappropriate he is.”