I think I know the real reason."
"Which is?"
"Alcohol in the dust clouds. Goddamn stuff is everywhere. Any lousy species ever invents the telescope and the spectroscope and starts looking in between the stars, what do they find?" He knocked the glass on the table. "Loads of stuff, but much of it alcohol." He drank from the glass. "Humanoids are the galaxy's way of trying to get rid of all that alcohol.

Who dies best, the soldier who falls for your sake, or the fly in my whiskey-glass? The happy agony of the fly is his reward for an adventurous dive in no cause but his own. Gorged and crazed, he touches bottom, knows he's gone as far as he can go, and bravely sticks. I sleep on. In the morning I pour new happiness upon the crust of the old, and only as I raise the glass to my lips descry through that rich brown double inch my flattened hero. I drink around his death, being no angler by any inclination, and leave him in the weird shallows. The glass set down, I idle beneath the fan, while beyond my window-bars a warm drizzle passes silently from clouds to leaves.
How to die? How to live? These questions, if we ask the dead fly, are both answered thus: In a drunken state. But drunk on WHAT should we all be? Well, there's love to drink, of course, and death, which is the same thing, and whiskey, better still, and heroin, best of all — except maybe for holiness. Accordingly, let this book, like its characters, be devoted to Addiction, Addicts, Pushers, Prostitutes and Pimps. With upraised needles, Bibles, dildoes and shot glasses, let us now throw our condoms in the fire, unbutton our trousers, and happily commit

THIS MULTITUDE OF CRIMES.

The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets.

The very dogs were all asleep, and the flies, drunk with moist sugar in the grocer’s shop, forgot their wings and briskness, and baked to death in dusty corners of the window.

Almost always they answer god or booze. One I don’t tolerate. The other, I’m told, doesn’t tolerate me.

Whence we may evidently see the Reason why those Liquors do so frequently cause those Obstructions and Stoppages in the Liver; which occasion the Jaundice, Dropsy, and many other fatal Diseases.

four basic causes of failure: sex, alcohol, deception, and stealing.

The principle thing is to understand that there is no safety or security. One of the worst vicious circles is the problem of the alcoholic. In very many cases he knows quite clearly that he is destroying himself, that, for him, liquor is poison, that he actually hates being drunk, and even dislikes the taste of liquor. And yet he drinks. For, dislike it as he may, the experience of not drinking is worse.

"The Flies And The Honey-Pot

A NUMBER of Flies were attracted to a jar of honey which had been overturned in a housekeeper's room, and placing their feet in it, ate greedily. Their feet, however, became so smeared with the honey that they could not use their wings, nor release themselves, and were suffocated. Just as they were expiring, they exclaimed, "O foolish creatures that we are, for the sake of a little pleasure we have destroyed ourselves." Pleasure bought with pains, hurts."

I think there is a genetic factor involved [...] If there is a history of alcoholism in your family, watch it.

Why do ants alone have parasites whose intoxicating moistures they drink and for whom they will sacrifice even their young? Because as they are the most highly socialized of insects, so their lives are the most intolerable.

If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be fucked up.

And when wine has soaked Cupid’s drunken wings,
he’s stayed, weighed down, a captive of the place.
...
Wine rouses courage and is fit for passion:
care flies, and deep drinking dilutes it.
...
Don’t trust the treacherous lamplight overmuch:
night and wine can harm your view of beauty.
Paris saw the goddesses in the light, a cloudless heaven,
when he said to Venus: ‘Venus, you win, over them both.’
Faults are hidden at night: every blemish is forgiven,
and the hour makes whichever girl you like beautiful.
Judge jewellery, and fabric stained with purple,
judge a face, or a figure, in the light.

Self-sedation seemed to require more alcohol than it used to, a problem easily remedied.