Happy to say you passed the sobriety test. Sad to say you failed the asshole test.

Getting sober is a radically creative act.

Was I being groomed for some special mission? What possible purpose could an existence like mine serve? When I wasn’t drinking in crappy bars, I was home by myself reading: a life that was achingly lonely, and yet perversely designed to prevent anybody from ever getting close enough to really know me.

Gately can't even imagine what it would be like to be a sober and drug-free biker. It's like what would be the point. He imagines these people polishing the hell out of their leather and like playing a lot of really precise pool.

There is no sobornost without crucifixion, because it is through pain that one acquires that deep knowledge that has nothing to do with books and education… that deep knowledge that is given by God and by God alone that builds the foundation of unity. People thus united are transparent, and it is in those depths that one finds, I repeat, the foundation of sobornost… of unity.

It's hard to walk a straight line when you have nothing to hold onto.

Disillusioned, people simply carried out their work as intended, drinking away sobriety at the end of each hard shift and repeating the process until death.

We want ecstasy as a way of life, not a liver-poisoning alcoholiday from it.

I lived to be forgotten because I'd forgotten how to live.

There is no better high than discovery.