“People are always telling me their life stories and they always tell me they have done so because I am a good listener. In fact I am a terrible listener, I don

“Finally Monk said to him, ‘You know, that note is wrong.’ [Tenor saxophonist Paul] Jeffrey said, ‘Monk, why didn

Dear readers,

No, I haven’t given up writing actual blog entries entirely, in favor of amassing inane collections of quotes; instead, I’m simply and completely buried under a ridiculous and unprecedented pile of work. Things will return to their normal pithy self as soon as I can dig my way back out.

jbn

“Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.”
– George Bernard Shaw

“It is a maudlin and indecent verity that comes out through the strength of wine.”
– Joseph Conrad

“I only drink to steady my nerves. Sometimes I’m so steady, I don’t move for months.”
– WC Fields

“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”
– Abe Lincoln

“O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.”
– William Shakespeare

“Sex is like money; only too much is enough.”
– John Updike

“Sex without love is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go it’s one of the best.”
– Woody Allen

“Never give in, never, never, never.”
– Winston Churchill

“If at first you don’t succeed, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.”
– W. C. Fields

“I quote others only in order the better to express myself.”
– Michel de Montaigne

“By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.”
– W. Somerset Maugham

“The kiss originated when the first male reptile licked the first female reptile, implying in a subtle, complimentary way that she was as succulent as the small reptile he had for dinner the night before.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald

“The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all.”
– Oscar Wilde

“An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools” – Hemingway