Quotes about wine
page 2

“The best wines take the longest to mature.”

John Fowles book The French Lieutenant's Woman

Source: The French Lieutenant's Woman

“yes, Wagner and the storm intermix with the wine as nights like this run up my wrists and up into my head and back down into the gut”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense

Night

“Mocking a woman is like drinking too much wine. It may be fun for a short time, but the hangover is hell.”

Brandon Sanderson book Warbreaker

Source: Warbreaker

Hell, Drink, Time

“Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine,
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you, darling
And I would still be on my feet
I would still be on my feet.”

Joni Mitchell (1943) Canadian musician

"A Case of You" from Blue
Songs
Source: Joni Mitchell: The Complete Poems and Lyrics

Drink

“Isn't wine prohibited here?" the boy asked. "It's not what enters men's mouths that's evil," said the alchemist. "It's what comes out of their mouths that is.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Variant: It's not what enters men's mouth that is evil," said the alchemist. It's what comes out of their mouths that is.
Source: The Alchemist

Men, Boy, Evil

“Drinking wine was not a snobbism nor a sign of sophistication nor a cult; it was as natural as eating and to me as necessary…”

Ernest Hemingway book A Moveable Feast

Source: A Moveable Feast

Drink, Nature

“I was fairly poor
but most of my money went
for wine and
classical music.
I loved to mix the two
together.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Last Night of the Earth Poems

Love, Money, Music

“I like on the table,
when we're speaking,
the light of a bottle
of intelligent wine.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Intelligence, Light

“A sip of wine, a cigarette,
And then it’s time to go.
I tidied up the kitchenette;
I tuned the old banjo.
I’m wanted at the traffic-jam.
They’re saving me a seat.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Time

“What I do, and what I dream include thee, as the wine must taste of its own grapes.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author

Source: Sonnets from the Portuguese and Other Poems

Dreams, For Him, For Boyfriend

“This wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear. You don't want to mix emotions up with a wine like that. You lose the taste.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Sun Also Rises

Count Mippipopolous, in Book 1, Ch. 7
Source: The Sun Also Rises (1926)

Drink

“Sex must be mixed with tears, laughter, words, promises, scenes, jealousy, envy, all the spices of fear, foreign travel, new faces, novels, stories, dreams, fantasies, music, dancing, opium, wine.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

Fear, Jealousy, Dreams, Music

“A paradox: The things you don’t need to live—books, art, cinema, wine, and so on—are the things you need to live.”

Matt Haig (1975) British writer

Source: The Humans

Books, Art

“And yet
to wine, to opium even, I prefer
the elixir of your lips on which love flaunts itself;
and in the wasteland of desire
your eyes afford the wells to slake my thirst.”

Charles Baudelaire book Les Fleurs du mal

Source: Les Fleurs du Mal

Love

“What wine goes with Captain Crunch?”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

“Happy. Just in my swim shorts, barefooted, wild-haired, in the red fire dark, singing, swigging wine, spitting, jumping, running -- that's the way to live. All alone and free in the soft sands of the beach….”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums

Happiness, Way, Singing

“The first duty of wine is to be red. Don't talk to me of your white wines.”

Henri Murger (1822–1861) novelist and poet from France

“Wine gave a sort of gallantry to their own failure.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Beautiful and Damned

Source: The Beautiful and Damned

Failure

“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

"The Catholic Sun"

Laughter, Sun

“It is the hour to be drunken! To escape being the martyred slaves of time, be ceaselessly drunk. On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Time

“Only a fool tries to reconstruct a bunch of grapes from a bottle of wine.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Art and Lies

Fools

“Nothing is as heady as the wine of possibility”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

“She lived frugally, but her meals were the only things on which she deliberately spent her money. She never compromised on the quality of her groceries, and drank only good-quality wines.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

Money

“If there was any magic in this world that was not magic, it was wine.”

Lev Grossman book The Magician's Land

Source: The Magician's Land

World

“[I]t is the wine that leads me on,
the wild wine
that sets the wisest man to sing
at the top of his lungs,
laugh like a fool – it drives the
man to dancing… it even
tempts him to blurt out stories
better never told.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

Source: The Odyssey

Fools, Singing, Dance

“I'm like a fine wine. I get better with age. The best is yet to come.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Age

“There are three things that none of the young men of the present generation can do. They can't sit over their wine; they can't play at wist; and they can't pay a lady a compliment.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: The Woman in White

Men

“I cook with wine, and sometimes I even add it to the food.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

Food, Cooking, Funny

“A bottle of wine begs to be shared; I have never met a miserly wine lover”

Clifton Fadiman (1904–1999) American editor

Lovers

“Most bad," the host concluded. "If you ask me, something sinister lurks in men who avoid wine, games, the company of lovely women, and dinnertime conversation. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly detest everyone around them.”

Mikhail Bulgakov book The Master and Margarita

Source: The Master and Margarita

Love, Women, Men, People

“If Bacchus ever had a color he could claim for his own, it should surely be the shade of tannin on drunken lips, of John Keat's 'purple-stained mouth', or perhaps even of Homer's dangerously wine-dark sea.”

Victoria Finlay (1964) British journalist

Color, Sea

“How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea.... All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Zorba the Greek

Source: Zorba the Greek (1946), Ch. 7

Happiness, Feeling, Heart, Sea

“A wine shop was open and I went in for some coffee. It smelled of early morning, of swept dust, spoons in coffee-glasses and the wet circles left by wine glasses.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

Coffee

“God alert!" Blackjack yelled. "It's the wine dude!
Mr. D sighed in exasperation. "The next person, or horse, who calls me the 'wine dude' will end up in a bottle of Merlot!”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

God, Horse, Personality

“and I get refill number three or four and the wine is making my bones loose and it's giving my hair a red sheen and my breasts are blooming and my eyes feel sultry and wise and the dress is water.”

Aimee Bender (1969) Novelist, short story writer

Feeling, Water

“Ah, it was a fine night, a warm night, a wine-drinking night, a moony night, and a night to hug your girl and talk and spit and be heavengoing.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Girl, Drink, Night

“Wine is like the incarnation--it is both divine and human”

Paul Tillich (1886–1965) German-American theologian and philosopher

“Traitor!" Hera shouted. "You meddlesome, D-list goddess! You aren't worthy to pour my wine, much less rule the world.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

World

“Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson, Vol 2

Tea

“She was not sorry. And if it was the wine telling her that, then she would tell the wine the same thing tomorrow. She was not sorry.”

Mary Balogh (1944) Welsh-Canadian novelist

Source: Slightly Wicked

“Magic, madam, is like wine and, if you are not used to it, it will make you drunk.”

Susanna Clarke book The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories

Source: The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories

“I am beginning to feel the need of a glass of wine to fortify myself against this conversation.”

Naomi Novik book His Majesty's Dragon

Source: His Majesty's Dragon

Feeling

“I am a connoisseur of fine irony. 'Tis a bit like fine wine, but it has a better bite.”

Lynn Kurland (2000) American writer

Source: Princess of the Sword

“I do have some leftover chicken and pasta. (Grace)
And wine?… That’s acceptable (Julian)
Look, buster, I’m not your cooking wench. Mess with me and I’ll feed you Alpo. (Grace)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

Cooking

“Like some wines our love could neither mature nor travel.”

Graham Greene book The Comedians

Source: The Comedians

Love, Travel

“I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Catherine Earnshaw (Ch. IX).
Source: Wuthering Heights (1847)

Life, Dreams, Idea, Water

“Wine is a grand thing," I said. "It makes you forget all the bad.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

Forgetting

“One should always be drunk. That's all that matters… But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

“Drunk, if you like; so much the worse for those who fear wine, for it is because they have bad thoughts which they are afraid the liquor will extract from their hearts.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 4 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Count_of_Monte_Cristo/Chapter_4 <br class="br">Source: The Count of Monte Cristo (1845–1846)

Fear, Heart

“guilt to motherhood is like grapes to wine”

Fay Weldon (1931) English author, essayist and playwright

“The only advice I can give to aspiring writers is don't do it unless you're willing to give your whole life to it. Red wine and garlic also helps.”

Jim Harrison (1937–2016) American novelist, poet, essayist

Life, Help

“I still don't understand what a sea god would be doing in Atlanta."
Leo snorted. "What's a wine god doing in Kansas? Gods are weird.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

God, Understanding, Sea

“a woman's place is in the kitchen… sitting in a comfortable chair, with her feet up, drinking a glass of wine and watching her husband cook dinner.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Source: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Drink, Cooking

“I plead alignment to the flakes of the untitled snakes of a merry cow and to the republicrats for which they scam: one nacho, underpants with licorice and jugs of wine for owls.”

Matt Groening (1954) American cartoonist

Source: The Big Book of Hell

“Apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, and public health… what have the Romans ever done for?

Brought peace!”

Graham Chapman (1941–1989) English comedian, writer and actor

Source: The Life Of Brian: Screenplay

Health, Education, Peace, Water

“Drinking wine and wearing trousers were nothing compared to reading the history of ideas.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali book Infidel

Source: Infidel (2007), Chapter 13: Leiden

History, Idea, Drink, Reading

“One drop of wine is enough to redden a whole glass of water.”

Victor Hugo book The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Source: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Water

“Christianity is the best way to cure gayness—just get on your knees, take a swig of wine, and accept the body of a man into your mouth.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

Way

“If we sip the wine, we find dreams coming upon us out of the imminent night”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

Dreams, Night

“Babe, you've destroyed a car, burned down two buildings, stapled a guy's nuts, and you have sixteen stitches in your leg. Take a night off. Have a glass of wine, watch some television, and go to bed early."
-Ranger”

Janet Evanovich book Lean Mean Thirteen

Source: Lean Mean Thirteen

Cars, Guy, Night

“Will there be poppy juice in it?"
Phresine shook her head.
"Good. My wife and I agreed that only my wine was to be poisoned.”

Megan Whalen Turner The King of Attolia

Source: The King of Attolia

“Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.”

Aristophanés (-448–-386 BC) Athenian playwright of Old Comedy

“… Coca-Cola and fries, the wafer and wine of the Western religion of commerce.”

Tad Williams book City of Golden Shadow

Source: City of Golden Shadow

Religion

“What you should really be sorry for," he continued, "is that for the rest of my life, I'll have to avoid wine cellars to keep from thinking about you."
"Why? Was kissing me that bad?"
A devil-solf whisper. "No sweetheart. It was that good.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Blue-Eyed Devil

Life, Kiss, Thinking

“Hiram!' Shelton ran to Hi's side. 'Aren't you you bleeding? I thought she shot you!'
'Red wine. When I saw it running everywhere, I played dead.' He winced as Shelton poked his belly. 'But I'm not leaping off any more shelves. That was pretty stupid.”

Kathy Reichs (1948) American writer

Stupidity, Dead

“Difference in opinions has cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether the juice of a certain berry be blood or wine.”

Jonathan Swift book Les Voyages de Gulliver

Source: Gulliver's Travels

“the psyche has been burned
and left us senseless,
the world has been darker than lights-out
in a closet full of hungry bats,
and the whiskey and wine entered our veins
when blood was too weak to carry on”

Charles Bukowski book The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

World, Light

“Good wine is a necessity of life for me.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

As quoted in The Man from Monticello : An Intimate Life of Thomas Jefferson (1969) by Thomas J. Fleming, p. 250
Posthumous publications

Life

“I'm not that complicated, Haven. The truth is, I've wanted you ever since I met you in that damned wine cellar. Because I got a bigger charge out of that five minutes than I have with any woman before or since…”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Blue-Eyed Devil

Truth

“This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

28 April 1778, p. 659 http://books.google.com/books?id=yYphdZ0abhUC&q=&quot;One+of+the+disadvantages+of+wine+it+makes+a+man+mistake+words+for+thoughts&quot;&pg=PA659#v=onepage <br class="br">Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II <br class="br">Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. Vol 2

“I had forgotten how gently time passes in Paris. As lively as the city is, there’s a stillness to it, a peace that lures you in. In Paris, with a glass of wine in your hand, you can just be.”

Kristin Hannah book The Nightingale

Source: The Nightingale

Peace, Time

“Wine can of their wits the wise beguile, Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XIV. 463–466 (tr. Alexander Pope).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)
Context: Tis sweet to play the fool in time and place,
And wine can of their wits the wise beguile,
Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile,
The grave in merry measures frisk about,
And many a long-repented word bring out.

Smile

“I am not sure I trust you."
"You can trust me with your life, My King."
"But not with my wine, obviously. Give it back.”

Megan Whalen Turner The King of Attolia

Source: The King of Attolia

Life

“The wine glasses are empty except for that one undrinkable red spot at the bottom.”

Aimee Bender (1969) Novelist, short story writer

“Laughter is wine for the soul – laughter soft, or loud and deep, tinged through with seriousness. Comedy and tragedy step through life together, arm in arm, all along, out along, down along lea. A laugh is a great natural stimulator, a pushful entry into life; and once we can laugh, we can live. It is the hilarious declaration made by man that life is worth living.”

Sean O`Casey (1880–1964) Irish writer

The Green Crow (New York: George Braziller, 1956) p. 226.

Life, Soul, Nature, Laughter

“I have drunken deep of joy,
And I will taste no other wine tonight.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley The Cenci

The Cenci (1819), Act I, sc. iii, l. 88

Joy

“You wine sack, with a dog's eyes, with a deer's heart.”

Homér Iliad

I. 225 (tr. Richmond Lattimore); Achilles to Agamemnon.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Dogs, Heart

“Life from nonlife, like wine from water, has long been considered a miracle wrought by gods or God. Now it is seen to be the near-inevitable consequence of our thermal and chemical circumstances.”

Ursula Goodenough book The Sacred Depths of Nature

Source: The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998), p. 28

Life, God, Water

“What do you do when old prophecies come true? I’ve never met a priest who honestly expected miracles in his own lifetime. For them miracles are like good wine, best when aged.”

Glen Cook Dreams of Steel

Source: Dreams of Steel (1990), Chapter (p. 430)

Age

“If I am peaceful, I shall see
Beauty's face continually;
Feeding on her wine and bread
I shall be wholly comforted,
For she can make one day for me
Rich as my lost eternity.”

Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) American writer and poet

"The Wind in the Hemlock"
Flame and Shadow (1920)

Peace, Beauty

“Clare takes a mouthful, swallows it in a businesslike fashion, and says, “Well, that’s not so bad.”
“That’s a twenty-something-dollar bottle of wine.””

Audrey Niffenegger book The Time Traveler's Wife

“Oh. Well, that was marvelous.”
Source: The Time Traveler’s Wife (2003), p. 419

Fashion

“There were many guests at the table
Misfortune, jealousy, and sloth
Acting fine, drink the wine
Spill it on the tablecloth - "Feast"”

Steve Kilbey (1954) British artist

Lyrics

Jealousy, Drink

“Moonlight on canvas, midnight and wine,Two shadows starting to softly combine.
The picture they're painting
Is one of the heart;
And to those who have seen it,
It's a true work of art.Oh, the red strokes,
Passions uncaged;
Thundering moments of tenderness rage.
Oh, the red strokes,
Tempered and strong (Fearlessly drawn),
Burning the night like the dawn.”

Garth Brooks (1962) American country music artist

The Red Strokes, written by Jim Garver, Lisa Sanderson, Jenny Yates, and G. Brooks.
Song lyrics, In Pieces (1993)

Strong, Rage, Passion, Heart

“People are often reproached because their desires are directed mainly to money and they are fonder of it than of anything else. Yet it is natural and even inevitable for them to love that which, as an untiring Proteus, is ready at any moment to convert itself into the particular object of our fickle desires and manifold needs. Thus every other blessing can satisfy only one desire and one need; for instance, food is good only to the hungry, wine only for the healthy, medicine for the sick, a fur coat for winter, women for youth, and so on. Consequently, all these are only … relatively good. Money alone is the absolutely good thing because it meets not merely one need in concreto, but needs generally in abstracto.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 347
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Love, Women, Money, People

“So I the pleasant grape have pulled from the vine,
And yet I languish in great thirst, while others drink the wine.”

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (1550–1604) English peer and courtier of the Elizabethan era

from Care and Disappointment, first published in Paradyse of Dainty Devices, 1576. Published by Grosart in Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies' Library, Vol. IV (1872)
Poems

Drink

“I think [Wine] will be, at a minimum, incredibly useful to archeology, like DosBox has been for playing Wing Commander. Certainly it has been known to save the day with modern titles, too. But to have it as the agreed-upon way to how you play video games on Linux is completely unacceptable for several reasons, both technical and moral.”

Ryan C. Gordon (1978) Computer programmer

Quoted in Luboš Doležel, "Interview: Ryan C. Gordon" http://www.abclinuxu.cz/clanky/rozhovor-ryan-c.-gordon-icculus?page=1 AbcLinuxu.cz (2011-03-08)

Way, Game, Thinking

“Wine makes a man more pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

April 28, 1778, p. 404
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

“By insisting on having your bottle pointing to the north when the cork is being drawn, and calling the waiter Max, you may induce an impression on your guests which hours of laboured boasting might be powerless to achieve. For this purpose, however, the guests must be chosen as carefully as the wine.”

Saki The Chronicles of Clovis

"The Chaplet"
The Chronicles of Clovis (1911)

“Mixing one's wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

The Singer, in The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1944), Prologue

Wisdom

“For wine, they drank the ocean – for bread, they ate their own despairs; counsel from the moon was theirs – for the foolish contention - Murder is not a pretty thing – yet seas do raucous everything to make it pretty – for the foolish or the brave, a way seas have.”

Marsden Hartley (1877–1943) American artist

poem on his painting: Fishermen’s Last Supper [of the Mason family, c. 1940-1941]; as quoted in Marsden Hartley, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press, 1988, New York p. 113
1931 - 1943

Way, Sea, Despair

“Wine is a great danger, especially because it doesn't bring truth to the surface. Anything but the truth, indeed: it reveals especially the past and forgotten history of the individual rather than his present wish; it capriciously flings into the light also all the half-baked ideas with which in a more or less recent period one has toyed and then forgotten.”

Italo Svevo book Zeno's Conscience

Il vino è un grande pericolo specie perché non porta a galla la verità. Tutt'altro che la verità anzi: rivela dell'individuo specialmente la storia passata e dimenticata e non la sua attuale volontà; getta capricciosamente alla luce anche tutte le ideucce con le quali in epoca più o meno recente ci si baloccò e che si è dimenticate.
Source: La coscienza di Zeno (1923), P. 194; p. 232.

Truth, History, Idea, Light