Playboy interview (1973)
Context: I've often thought there ought to be a manual to hand to little kids, telling them what kind of planet they're on, why they don't fall off it, how much time they've probably got here, how to avoid poison ivy, and so on. I tried to write one once. It was called Welcome to Earth. But I got stuck on explaining why we don't fall off the planet. Gravity is just a word. It doesn't explain anything. If I could get past gravity, I'd tell them how we reproduce, how long we've been here, apparently, and a little bit about evolution. I didn't learn until I was in college about all the other cultures, and I should have learned that in the first grade. A first grader should understand that his or her culture isn't a rational invention; that there are thousands of other cultures and they all work pretty well; that all cultures function on faith rather than truth; that there are lots of alternatives to our own society. Cultural relativity is defensible and attractive. It's also a source of hope. It means we don't have to continue this way if we don't like it.
Quotes about poisoning
page 2
Source: The Sword or the Cross, Which Should be the Weapon of the Christian Militant? (1921), Ch.6 p. 105
Context: Mightier than divisions of infantry and cavalry, more powerful than dynamite and ammonal, more irresistible than poison gas and boiling oil, is the spirit of the cross. It is the one thing in the world that cannot be frightened, discouraged or conquered. It is the one sure way of overcoming personal, industrial, and political oppression. Truly it is the greatest thing in the world.
"Celephaïs" - Written early November 1920; first published in The Rainbow, No. 2 (May 1922)<!-- p. 10-12 -->
Fiction
Context: There are not many persons who know what wonders are opened to them in the stories and visions of their youth; for when as children we listen and dream, we think but half-formed thoughts, and when as men we try to remember, we are dulled and prosaic with the poison of life. But some of us awake in the night with strange phantasms of enchanted hills and gardens, of fountains that sing in the sun, of golden cliffs overhanging murmuring seas, of plains that stretch down to sleeping cities of bronze and stone, and of shadowy companies of heroes that ride caparisoned white horses along the edges of thick forests; and then we know that we have looked back through the ivory gates into that world of wonder which was ours before we were wise and unhappy.
“Hey Grover! Thorn's kidnapping us! He's a poisonous spike-throwing maniac! Help!”
Source: The Titan's Curse
Source: Bleach, Volume 18
Source: Take a Murder, Darling
“Stop longing. You poison today’s ease, reaching always for tomorrow.”
Source: Fool's Errand
“I give you bitter pills, in a sugar coating. The pills are harmless - the poison's in the sugar”
Source: Party Monster: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland
“Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
Variant: Resentment is like drinking a poison and waiting for the other person to die.
Source: Wishful Drinking
“We clutch our bellies and roll on the floor…
When I say this, it should mean laughter,
not poison.”
Source: Crush
“I wish, I wish I were a poisonous bacterium.”
Dates to 1899, American humor origin, originally featuring a woman upset by a man's cigar smoking. Cigar often removed in later versions, coffee added in 1900. Incorrectly attributed in Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, Glitter and Gold (1952).
See various early citations and references to refutations at “If you were my husband, I’d poison your coffee” (Nancy Astor to Churchill?) http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/if_you_were_my_husband_id_poison_your_coffee_nancy_astor_to_churchill, Barry Popik, The Big Apple,' February 09, 2009
Early examples include 19 November 1899, Gazette-Telegraph (CO), "Tales of the Town," p. 7, and early attributions are to American humorists Marshall P. Wilder and De Wolf Hopper.
Churchill by Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations, by Richard Langworth, PublicAffairs, 2008, p. 578.
The Yale Book of Quotations, edited by Fred R. Shapiro, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2006, p. 155.
George Thayer, The Washington Post (April 27, 1971), p. B6.
Misattributed
Variant: Lady Nancy Astor: Winston, if you were my husband, I'd put arsenic in your morning coffee.
Winston Churchill: Madam, if you were my wife, I'd drink it.
“I felt like poisoning a monk.”
Source: Postscript to the Name of the Rose
“Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison, and then waiting around for the rat to die.”
Traveling Mercies
Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
“Aww, you know my verbal stingers are only poisoned with love”
Source: Silver Is for Secrets
“… it is better to have a mouthful of poison than a secret of the heart.”
Source: The Wise Man's Fear
“I'm a hacker!" Cadel protested. "I don't poison people! I don't blow them up!”
Source: Evil Genius
Source: Magic Rises
Source: Rapture
“the poisonous world flows into my mouth like water into that of a drowning man”
Source: Diaries of Franz Kafka
“Not all monsters were three-ton reptiles with poisonous breath. Many wore human faces.”
Source: The Hidden Oracle
“Stop all this weeping, swallow your pride
You will not die, it’s not poison”
Song lyrics, Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Tombstone Blues
Source: The Diamond as Big as the Ritz & Other Stories
“The future was with Fate. The present was our own.
~ The Poison Belt”
Source: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
“He wanted to work in Hot Woman Valhalla until he died of testosterone poisoning. (Nick)”
Source: Infinity
“War don't ennoble men, it turns 'em into dogs. It poisons the soul.”
Source: The Thin Red Line
“And I do wish she wouldn't sing about poisoning just after we have eaten.”
Source: Clockwork Prince
“You hold onto what you have; you do not give it up easily, even when you know it is poisoning you.”
Source: Wormwood: A Collection of Short Stories
Source: The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio
“Next time you wish to feed me poison, warn me first," Loor demanded. (The Merchant of Death)”
“Remember my titles? I don't get poisoned, I do the poisoning. I'm the Princess of it”
Source: Poison Princess
“Chaos needs no allies, for it dwells like a poison in every one of us.”
Source: Midnight Tides (2004)
Source: This is Where I Leave You
Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
“Briarwood is the pretty poison. There is no cure for Briarwood.”
Source: The Mysterious Benedict Society
Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934