“The chief reason for drinking is the desire to behave in a certain way, and to be able to blame it on alcohol.”

“People will want you to behave a certain way, to make a certain choice because it reinforces the way they see the world… But you have to do what's right for you.”

Jennifer Weiner (1970) American writer

“Tis not the drinking that is to be blamed, but the excess.”

John Selden (1584–1654) English jurist and scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution, and of Jewish law

“How to get stimulation out of simple food and water drink, and not alcohol.”

Frank Crane (1861–1928) American Presbyterian minister

“An alcoholic is someone you don't like, who drinks as much as you do.”

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer

“There was a thing called Heaven; but all the same they used to drink enormous quantities of alcohol.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

“When we read of human beings behaving in certain ways, with the approval of the author, who gives his benediction to this behavior by his attitude towards the result of the behavior arranged by himself, we can be influenced towards behaving in the same way.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

“And in my mind, this settles the issue. I would never drink cologne, and am therefore not an alcoholic.”

Augusten Burroughs book Dry

“Rationally speaking, blaming one's behavior on alcohol or drugs is like blaming the ladder by which you descended into a pit, or the staircase that took you down to a cellar, for what you found there.”

Graham Joyce book Some Kind of Fairy Tale

“Men do not knowingly drink for the effect alcohol produces on the body. What they drink for is the brain-effect; and if it must come through the body, so much the worse for the body.”

Jack London book John Barleycorn