Sober Quotes - Page 11

• I once heard a sober alcoholic say that drinking never made him happy, but it made him feel like he was going to be happy in about fifteen minutes. That was exactly it, and I couldn't understand why the happiness never came, couldn't see the flaw in my thinking, couldn't see that alcohol kept me trapped in a world of illusion, procrastination, paralysis. I lived always in the future, never in the present. Next time, next time! Next time I drank it would be different, next time it would make me feel good again.

  Heather King

  Drinking, Procrastination, Thinking

  Heather King (2006). “Parched”, p.100, Penguin

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• You know the stories of a woman saying to Churchill, 'Sir, you're drunk,' and he said to her, 'And you're ugly, but in the morning I'll be sober.' I was really excited to do that scene, but I did get slapped.

  Thomas Howes

  Morning, Drunk, Stories

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• Till now poets were privileged to insert a certain proportion of nonsense - very far in excess of one-half of one per cent - into their otherwise sober documents.

  John Crowe Ransom

  Excess, Half, Ransom

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• I have been sober for the longest time. Oh, it's over a decade now. No joke.

  Dana Plato

  Jokes, Has Beens, Decades

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• I inherited a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober.

  Samuel Johnson

  Father, Mad, Melancholy

  In James Boswell 'Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides' (1785) 16 September 1773

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• Impostor; do not charge most innocent Nature, As if she would her children should be riotous With her abundance; she, good cateress, Means her provision only to the good, That live according to her sober laws, And holy dictate of spare temperance.

  John Milton

  Children, Mean, Law

  John Milton (1844). “I. Prose Works: Poetical works. II.”

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• Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane. H. P. LOVECRAFT, attributed, Telling It Like It Is Dancing is very important nowadays. No girl will look at you if you can't dance.

  Chinua Achebe

  Dance, Girl, Dancing

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• I don't say that the drunk man is the real man, and the sober man merely a shell. But you find out something different about people when they're drunk. Of course, you sometimes find that they're not different at all--that you merely get more of the same, perhaps said rather more loudly and incoherently, but basically the same.

  Kingsley Amis

  Real, Men, Drunk

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• I prefer being totally sober myself.

  Aziz Ansari

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• You are now fixed at the mercy of no governor that comes to make his fortune great; you shall be governed by laws of your own making and live a free, and if you will, a sober and industrious life. I shall not usurp the right of any, or oppress his person. God has furnished me with a better resolution and has given me his grace to keep it.

  William Penn

  Law, Grace, Mercy

  Letter to those already residing in Pennsylvania, 1681.

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• Alcohol may also persuade us that we have found the truth about life, a comforting experience rarely available in the sober hour.

  Joan Acocella

  Drinking, Alcohol, Comforting

  "A Few Too Many" by Joan Acocella, www.newyorker.com. May 26, 2008.

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• No man can expect to find a friend without faults; nor can he propose himself to be so to another. Without reciprocal mildness and temperance there can be no continuance of friendship. Every man will have something to do for his friend, and something to bear with in him. The sober man only can do the first; and for the latter, patience is requisite. It is better for a man to depend on himself, than to be annoyed with either a madman or a fool.

  Owen Feltham

  Friends, Men, Annoyed

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• Luther deters me from solitariness; but he does not mean from a sober solitude that rallies our scattered strengths and prepares us against any new encounter from without.

  Francis Atterbury

  Mean, Solitude, Encounters

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• Some things will not bear much zeal; and the more earnest we are about them, the less we recommend ourselves to the approbation of sober and considerate men.

  John Tillotson

  Men, Bears, Considerate

  John Tillotson (1757). “The Works of the Most Reverend John Tillotson, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury: In Twelve Volumes, Containing 254 Sermons and Discourses on Several Occassions; Together with the Rule of Faith; Prayers Composed by Him for His Own Life; a Discourse to His Servants Before the Sacrament; and a Form of Prayer Composed by Him for the Use of King William”, p.48

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• Too many people believe they can control their drug of choice. But the drug is almost always in control. If an addict truly wants help, it is available, but it is a rocky path. The monster always calls. Never give an addict money. Clothe them. Feed them. But enabling them is the quickest path to watching them fade away completely. This may seem harsh. But I've watched my own child relapse, after six years sober. I love her. Always. But I can't help her die.

  Ellen Hopkins

  Children, Believe, Years

  Source: monsterlibrarian.com

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• In the late twentieth century, staying sober has become just as much an addiction as getting wasted.

  Dennis Miller

  Addiction, Century, Late

  Dennis Miller (2011). “Ranting Again”, p.48, Main Street Books

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• I am always writing music. I have got unlimited ideas because I have been clean and sober for my entire life.

  Ted Nugent

  Writing, Ideas, Clean

  "Ted Nugent Exclusive All Access Interview Motor City Madman Shutup & Jam P2". Interview with Mark Capuano, music.allaccess.com. July 22, 2014.

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• Subduing and subdued, the petty strife, Which clouds the colour of domestic life; The sober comfort, all the peace which springs From the large aggregate of little things; On these small cares of daughter, wife or friend, The almost sacred joys of home depend.

  Hannah More

  Daughter, Spring, Women

  Hannah More (1840). “The Miscellaneous Works of Hannah More”, p.205

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• They were wrestling with canvases, using violent colors and huge brush strokes. I arrived with gray, silent, sober, oppressed paintings. One critic said they were paintings that thought.

  Antoni Tapies

  Wrestling, Color, Painting

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• There were decades I didn't play sober. I thought, Who would want to? But at some point, I decided that if it was important enough to me to keep doing it as art, I should do it with all my tools.

  Kris Kristofferson

  Art, Play, Important

  "Q&A with Kris Kristofferson". Interview with Andy Langer, www.esquire.com. February 27, 2006.

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• The lie of a pipe dream is what gives life to the whole misbegotten mad lot of us, drunk or sober.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Dream, Lying, Giving

  Travis Bogard, Eugene O'Neill (1988). “Contour in Time: The Plays of Eugene O'Neill”, p.453, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• Do you know why more people don't sober up? Because they don't wear their livers on the outside. If everyone wore their liver on their forehead, say, it would be on full view and people would say, 'Heffens, Jock, that liver of yours is looking fair hobnailed,' and they would get shamed into doing something about it.

  M.C. Beaton

  Drinking, Sober Up, Views

  M.C. Beaton (2009). “Death of a Poison Pen”, p.157, Hachette UK

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• To write you must be warm, fed, loved and sober.

  Philip Larkin

  Writing, Feds, Warm

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• Come landlord fill a flowing bowl until it does run over,
  Tonight we will all merry be--tomorrow we'll get sober.

  John William Fletcher

  Running, Drinking, Tonight

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• And he that will go to bed sober, Falls with the leaf still in October.

  Dario Fo

  Fall, Bed, October

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