“All the drugs in the world won't save us from ourselves.”
Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor
A collection of quotes on the topic of drug, people, likeness, use.
“All the drugs in the world won't save us from ourselves.”
Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor
Frank Zappa book The Real Frank Zappa Book
The Real Frank Zappa Book (1989)
Source: The Real Frank Zappa Book
“Straight edge means I'm drug free, alcohol free, and better than you.”
Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist
Catchphrases
Source: Straight Edge significa che sono libero da droghe, libero dall'alcol e migliore di voi]
Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist
As quoted in Rolling Stone (1992-04-16).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print
Context: All drugs are a waste of time. They destroy your memory and your self-respect and everything that goes along with your self-esteem. They’re no good at all. But I’m not going to go around preaching against [them].
“Avoid using cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs as alternatives to being an interesting person.”
Marilyn vos Savant (1946) US American magazine columnist, author and lecturer
“Drugs? Every one has a choice and I choose not to do drugs.”
Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer
http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm
“Instead of war on poverty,
they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me.”
Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor
“Books are a hard-bound drug with no danger of an overdose. I am the happy victim of books.”
Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) German fashion designer
“Marijuana… That's not a drug, that's a plant.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947) actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heritage
Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist
Dorothy Parker: Complete Broadway, 1918–1923 (2014) https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25758762M/Dorothy_Parker_Complete_Broadway_1918-1923, Chapter 6: 1923
Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter
Launch.com, November 2, 2000<!-- site no longer exists -->
Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer
Speech at Queen's College, City University of New York (March 12, 1975). "The Sexual Politics of Fear and Courage", ch. 5, published in Our Blood (1976).
Tina Turner (1939) singer, dancer, actress, and author
Tina Turner is a soul survivor http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/music/141823/Tina-Turner-is-a-soul-survivor, Daily Express, 22th of November 2009
Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician
Source: Discovering Buddhism, 2004 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=226w04QMPzQ
Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist
Variant: Television is by nature the dominator drug par excellence. Control of content, uniformity of content, repeatability of content make it inevitably a tool of coersion, brainwashing, and manipulation.
Source: Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer
Quoted in interview, The Paris Review (Fall 1965), in response to "The visions of drugs and the visions of art don't mix?"
Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer
http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm
Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist
Extreme Championship Wrestling. July 4th, 2006.
This was Punk's debut on ECW television.
Extreme Championship Wrestling
Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician
Talking about drugs, quoted in **
Audioslave Era
Michelle Phillips (1944) Singer, actress
On returning to California after having spent her early childhood in Mexico City, Rolling Stone no. 259 (February 23, 1978)
“All you kiddies remember to lay off the needle drugs”
Abbie Hoffman (1936–1989) American political and social activist
"God Bless America — Shoot Nixon", on the spoken word album Wake Up America! (1970).
Context: All you kiddies remember to lay off the needle drugs, the only dope worth shooting is Richard Nixon.
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
"As I Please," The Tribune (17 January 1947)
"As I Please" (1943–1947)
Context: This business of making people conscious of what is happening outside their own small circle is one of the major problems of our time, and a new literary technique will have to be evolved to meet it. Considering that the people of this country are not having a very comfortable time, you can't perhaps, blame them for being somewhat callous about suffering elsewhere, but the remarkable thing is the extent to which they manage to be unaware of it. Tales of starvation, ruined cities, concentration camps, mass deportations, homeless refugees, persecuted Jews — all this is received with a sort of incurious surprise, as though such things had never been heard of but at the same time were not particularly interesting. The now-familiar photographs of skeleton-like children make very little impression. As time goes on and the horrors pile up, the mind seems to secrete a sort of self-protecting ignorance which needs a harder and harder shock to pierce it, just as the body will become immunised to a drug and require bigger and bigger doses.
“Take me, I am the drug; take me, I am hallucinogenic.”
Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist
Quote from Dali by Dali (1970), as cited in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (2012), p. 737
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1961 - 1970
“Drugs will turn you into your parents.”
Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer
“Animation is not just for children - it's also for adults who take drugs.”
Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer
“true apothecary thy drugs art quick”
William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet
Source: Romeo and Juliet
“There's not a drug on earth can make life meaningful”
Sarah Kane book 4.48 Psychosis
Source: 4.48 Psychosis
“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.”
Hunter S. Thompson book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Source: 1970s, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971)
Context: We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive..." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: "Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?"
Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist
Source: Enough Rope
“The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.”
Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2009-06-24
Questions for the President: Prescription for America
ABC News
TV
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/HealthCare/story?id=7920012
2009
Bert McCracken (1982) American musician
Jim Farber (March 11, 2003) "Our Kelly's Mormon boyfriend", New Zealand Herald, Wilson & Horton Ltd., p. 6.
“Ambition is a drug that makes its addicts potential madmen.”
Emil M. Cioran book History and Utopia
History and Utopia (1960)
John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter
Letter to Oral Roberts in 1972, as quoted in Oral Roberts : An American Life (1985) by David Edwin Harrell, p. 310; later published in How to be a Successful Teenager (1994) by Rick Jones, Ch. 5 : The Secret About Material Things, p. 54; the accuracy of this is disputed in "The Gospel of John Lennon" in This Land Press (7 March 2011) http://thislandpress.com/03/07/2011/the-gospel-of-john-lennon/ <br class="br">Disputed
“From henceforth, no medicine, no doctors, no drugs of any kind shall come into this house. \”
Smith Wigglesworth (1859–1947) British evangelist
Pledging his commitment to Faith Healing. <br class="br">Page 38 <br class="br"> The Complete Story: A New Biography on the Apostle of Faith By Julian Wilson http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=e2RWZpOHfmoC|Wigglesworth:
Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor
"Public Service Announcement" (Track 1).
1990s, The Slim Shady LP (1999)
“Drugs provide pleasure; they cannot provide happiness. For happiness, you need people.”
William Glasser (1925–2013) American psychiatrist
Source: Choice Theory (1997), p. 88
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2014, Statement on Cuban policy (December 2014)
“I'm on the drug
I'm on the drug
I'm on the drug that killed River Phoenix”
River Phoenix (1970–1993) American actor, musician, and activist
He'll Never Be An Ol' Man River by TISM
Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint
Homily during the Holy Mass on Boston Common in Boston, Massachusetts, on 1 October 1979, during the pope's first apostolic journey to the United States <br class="br">Source: Libreria Editrice Vaticana http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/homilies/1979/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_19791001_usa-boston_en.html
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Attacking William Gladstone's Liberal Government
Source: Speech to the Conservatives of Manchester (3 April 1872), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume II. 1860–1881 (London: John Murray, 1929), pp. 530-531.
Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer
"The Distracted Public" (1990)
It All Adds Up (1994)
“In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people.”
Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker
Post to mlist.linux.kernel newsgroup, 2001-10-04, Torvalds, Linus, 2016-05-01 https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mlist.linux.kernel/6Yj1ipr6nEc/dbhIEkhm4LgJ, <br class="br">2000s, 2000-04
Charles Barkley (1963) American basketball player
Asked to comment on the 20th anniversary of the cocaine-overdose death of Len Bias,
Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor
Source: Interview with V Magazine, as quoted in UsMagazine: Justin Bieber Talks Sex, Drugs and Turning 18 http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/justin-bieber-talks-sex-drugs-and-turning-18-2012101, January 2012
Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929) Filmmaker and comics writer
Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy (2010)
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)
Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter
Launch.com, October 30, 1998<!-- site no longer exists -->
Nancy Reagan (1921–2016) actress and first lady of the United States
Just Say No (1986)
Context: As a mother, I've always thought of September as a special month, a time when we bundled our children off to school, to the warmth of an environment in which they could fulfill the promise and hope in those restless minds. But so much has happened over these last years, so much to shake the foundations of all that we know and all that we believe in. Today there's a drug and alcohol abuse epidemic in this country, and no one is safe from it — not you, not me, and certainly not our children, because this epidemic has their names written on it. Many of you may be thinking: "Well, drugs don't concern me." But it does concern you. It concerns us all because of the way it tears at our lives and because it's aimed at destroying the brightness and life of the sons and daughters of the United States.
Frank Herbert (1920–1986) American writer
"Science Fiction and a World in Crisis" in Science Fiction: Today and Tomorrow (1974) edited by Reginald Bretnor
General sources
Context: The current utopian ideal being touted by people as politically diverse (on the surface, but not underneath) as President Richard M. Nixon and Senator Edward M. Kennedy goes as follows — no deeds of passion allowed, no geniuses, no criminals, no imaginative creators of the new. Satisfaction may be gained only in carefully limited social interactions, in living off the great works of the past. There must be limits to any excitement. Drug yourself into a placid "norm." Moderation is the key word…
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1860s, Fourth of July Address to Congress (1861)
Context: It might seem at first thought to be of little difference whether the present movement at the South be called "secession" or "rebellion." The movers, however, well understand the difference. At the beginning they knew they could never raise their treason to any respectable magnitude by any name which implies violation of law. They knew their people possessed as much of moral sense, as much of devotion to law and order, and as much pride in and reverence for the history and Government of their common country as any other civilized and patriotic people. They knew they could make no advancement directly in the teeth of these strong and noble sentiments. Accordingly, they commenced by an insidious debauching of the public mind. They invented an ingenious sophism, which, if conceded, was followed by perfectly logical steps through all the incidents to the complete destruction of the Union. The sophism itself is that any State of the Union may consistently with the National Constitution, and therefore lawfully and peacefully, withdraw from the Union without the consent of the Union or of any other State. The little disguise that the supposed right is to be exercised only for just cause, themselves to be the sole judge of its justice, is too thin to merit any notice. With rebellion thus sugar coated they have been drugging the public mind of their section for more than thirty years, and until at length they have brought many good men to a willingness to take up arms against the Government the day after some assemblage of men have enacted the farcical pretense of taking their State out of the Union who could have been brought to no such thing the day before.
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2014, Statement on Cuban policy (December 2014)
H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author
Fiction, Hypnos (1922)
Context: May the merciful gods, if indeed there be such, guard those hours when no power of the will, or drug that the cunning of man devises, can keep me from the chasm of sleep. Death is merciful, for there is no return therefrom, but with him who has come back out of the nethermost chambers of night, haggard and knowing, peace rests nevermore. Fool that I was to plunge with such unsanctioned frensy into mysteries no man was meant to penetrate; fool or god that he was — my only friend, who led me and went before me, and who in the end passed into terrors which may yet be mine!
“So if I said I never did drugs, that would mean I lie and get fucked more than the president does!”
Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor
"Role Model" (Track 9).
1990s, The Slim Shady LP (1999)
Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)
Message to Congress (2 August 1977)
Presidency (1977–1981), 1977
Rodrigo Duterte (1945) Filipino politician and the 16th President of the Philippines
Original: (tl) ‘Yang aming away ko sa Katoliko amin lang yan personal. Kayong mga adik, ‘wag ninyong totohanin ‘yong pukpokin yung bishop at kardinal, hindi sila kasali sa political ruckus.<br><br> About-face: Duterte now says ‘Don’t kill bishops, priests’ https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1089736/about-face-duterte-now-says-dont-kill-bishops-priests(February 25, 2019)
Kristen Marhaver American marine biologist
Source: How we're growing baby corals to rebuild reefs https://www.ted.com/talks/kristen_marhaver_how_we_re_growing_baby_corals_to_rebuild_reefs (October 2015)
Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin
When receiving the Nobel peace price in 1979. As quoted from Hitchens, C. (2012). The missionary position: Mother Theresa in theory and practice.
Source: Fathers and mothers are so busy they have no time. Young parents work, and the child lives in the street and goes his own way. We speak of peace. These are the things that threaten peace. I think that today peace is threatened by abortion, too, which is a true war, the direct killing of a child by its own mother. In the Bible we read that God clearly said: “Even though a mother did forget her infant, I will not forget him.”Today, abortion is the worst evil, and the greatest enemy of peace. We who are here today were wanted by our parents. We would not be here if our parents had not wanted us.We want children, and we love them. But what about the other millions? Many are concerned about the children, like those in Africa, who die in great numbers either from hunger or for other reasons. But millions of children die intentionally, by the will of their mothers. Because if a mother can kill her own child, what will prevent us from killing ourselves, or one another? Nothing.
Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter
Don't Blame Me, written by Taylor Swift, Max Martin, and Shellback
Song lyrics, Reputaion (2017)
“He was my drug, and I had no desire to kick the habit.”
Sylvia Day (1973) American writer
Source: Reflected in You
“I'm a reading addict. I can't live without it, like someone who is addicted to drugs.”
Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela
“Reality is a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs.”
Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer
As "Trudy"
Unsourced variant: Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle drugs.
Contributions of Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)
Lester Grinspoon (1928–2020) American physician
Source: Marihuana Reconsidered
“I say 'no' to drugs. Whenever someone asks me for some of my drugs
I say, 'no.”
Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) American actor and comedian
“I don't have a problem with drugs, I have a problem with policemen.”
Keith Richards (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones
“Words must surely be counted among the most powerful drugs man ever invented.”
Leo Rosten (1908–1997) American writer
Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer
As quoted in If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren't There More Happy People? (2009) by John Mitchinson, p. 87