By the time a bartender knows what drink a man will have before he orders, there is little else about him worth knowing. Don Marquis Wine is like rain: when it falls on the mire it but makes it fouler, but when it strikes the good soil wakes it to beauty and bloom. John May Winston Churchill’s habit of guzzling a quart or two a day of good cognac is what saved civilization from the Luftwaffe, Hegelian logic, Wagnerian love-deaths and potato pancakes. Charles McCabe I drank at every vine. The last was like the first. I came upon no wine So wonderful as thirst. Edna St. Vincent Millay Watlington, which combined the distinction of being the smallest town in England with having more pubs per head of the population than I believed possible. John Mortimer [Taverns] are universal places, like churches, hallowed meeting places of all mankind. Iris Murdoch We cannot move around large quantities of necessary fluids without spilling them occasionally. Those of us who drink have proven this by experimental method. P.J. O’Rourke In wine there is truth. Pliny the Elder The ideal barroom ambience evokes neither rush-hour subway frenzy nor the torpor of a government office on a summer afternoon. Eno Putain The only wise thing about having a third martini is that you’re not yet having a fourth. Eno Putain The promised land at day’s end, where gelid martinis—conical pools of bliss—glow with platinum dew and sit atop their long pelican legs on the mahogany bar, sentries overlooking bowls of salty nuts. Eno Putain Yes, God is in the details, but at some point even God says, “Enough, let’s go have a cocktail!” Eno Putain I drink no more than a sponge. François Rabelais If you can’t explain your physics to a barmaid, it is probably not very good physics. Ernest Rutherford After eating, an epicure gives a thin smile of satisfaction; a gastronome, burping into his napkin, praises the food in a magazine; a gourmet, repressing his burp, criticizes the food in the same magazine; a gourmand belches happily and tells everybody where he ate; a glutton embraces the white porcelain altar, or, more plainly, he barfs. William Safire It is all nonsense about not being able to work without ale, and gin, and cider, and fermented liquors. Do lions and carthorses drink ale? Sydney Smith An alcoholic is someone you don’t like who drinks as much as you do. Dylan Thomas Water taken in moderation cannot hurt anybody. Mark Twain How much of our literature, our political life, our friendships and love affairs, depend on being able to talk peacefully in a bar! John Wain Contrarians drink to remember. Dave Weinbaum I must get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini. Alexander Woollcott When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading. Henny Youngman AMBITION Ambition is the subtlest beast of the intellectual and moral field. It is wonderfully adroit in concealing itself from its owner. John Adams The ambitious climbs up high and perilous stairs and never cares how to come down; the desire of rising hath swallowed up his fear of a fall. Thomas Adams God is not dead but alive and working on a much less ambitious project. Anonymous Graffito A man’s worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus In this country, every man is the architect of his own ambitions. Horton Bain Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. Edgar Bergen It’s stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition. Bono Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in. Bill Bradley Say what we will, we may be sure that ambition is an error. Its wear and tear on the heart are never recompensed. Edward Bulwer-Lytton The same sun which gilds all nature, and exhilarates the whole creation, does not shine upon disappointed ambition. Edmund Burke He who would rise in the world should veil his ambitions with the forms of humanity. Chinese proverb It is by attempting to reach the top at a single leap that so much misery is caused in the world.