“Reading was like a drug, a dope. The novels created moods in which I lived for days.”— Richard Wright, amazon.com
“There aren’t many ways to find comfort in this world. We must take it where we can get it, even in the darkest, most disgusting places.”— Melissa Broder, amazon.com
“Sometimes I just think depression’s one way of coping with the world. Like, some people get drunk, some people do drugs, some people get depressed. Because there’s so much stuff out there that you have to do something to deal with it.”— Ned Vizzini, amazon.com
“The opioid crisis is an emergency. And I am saying officially right now: It is an emergency, it's a national emergency. We're going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis.”— Donald Trump, yahoo.com
“The Trump administration will not declare a public health emergency on the opioid epidemic, dismissing the top recommendation his own blue-ribbon commission called for a week ago. The commission argued such a declaration was critical to unlock emergency funding and expand treatment.”— David Dayen, Ryan Grim, theintercept.com
“I really don't want drugs around me now. I'm not necessarily against the use of drugs, they just don't fit in my life right now.”— Axl Rose, rollingstone.com
“As many Americans will die in 2017 of drug overdoses as died in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan wars combined.”— Nicholas Kristof, nytimes.com
“We are all of us like that boy sometimes. I mean we all carry something inside us that can be rejected; that can look silver in the light. You can deny it, or try and throw it in the garbage by all means. You can despise it so much you drink yourself halfway to death. At the end of the day, though,…”— Olivia Laing, amazon.com
“As he inflates his imagination, he inflates his capacity for anxiety, and inevitably becomes the victim of crushing phobias that can only be allayed by crushing doses of heroin or alcohol.”— John Cheever, amazon.com
“I advise any bashful young man to take hashish when he wants to offer his heart to any fair lady, for it will give him the courage of a hero, the eloquence of a poet, and the ardor of an Italian.”— Louisa May Alcott, Dr. Meredith, amazon.com
“If drugs really numb your consciousness, they'd be a good thing. As it was, they slowed you down, confused you, kept you vulnerable to violent flashes of recall, and then agitated you and made you unsure of what you knew and didn't know.”— Anne Rice, amazon.com
“It is easier to watch a woman, especially one that’s beautiful, smudgy and in trouble, than to listen to her.”— Eva Wiseman, theguardian.com
“The paramedic thinks I'm clever cos I play guitar I think she’s clever cos she stops people dying Anaphylactic and super hypocondriactic Should’ve stayed in bed today I much prefer the mundane.”— Courtney Barnett, open.spotify.com