“ And you know what the worst thing was?The worst thing was that nobody ever believed how hard we tried. Jack McCarthy
“ It drains the bars and cafes after hours, concentrates the wicked and the guilty along its chipped Formica counter, and thrums with the gossip of criminals, policemen, shtarkers,and schlemiels, whores… Michael Chabon
“ My tongue thirsty for superiority, maybe even immortality, ruled me. I was ruled by my tongue. I was ruled by women. I was ruled by alcohol. Jerzy Pilch
“ You're the measure of my true decline. Your home isn't in the underworld, you live in the back room of the liquor store. My eternally hung-over angel, my Satan crawling like an amber worm from a bottl… Jerzy Pilch
“ These guys had names for every conceivable drinking situation. They liked to have a little eye-opener to get themselves going in the morning, a midmorning bracer before attempting anything serious, a… G.M. Ford
“ Veins of ivy scale stones,find footholds butthe caretaker cuts earth short, peels creepers from Cotswold rock and props the deadhead to head so they won’ttopple like drunkson their moss-soft shadows. Jalina Mhyana
“ They loved him, or loved the thought of him, what they thought he was: a man who could easily have had a good life who chose instead their life: spite and bitterness and age-fogged glasses of watery w… Donal Ryan