Frederick Exley Quotes

#1. Unlike some men, I had never drunk for boldness or charm or wit; I had used alcohol for precisely what it was, a depressant to check the mental exhilaration produced by extended sobriety.

Frederick Exley

#2. Listening now, it occured to me that I hadn't come very far over the yars -- no farther really than from one "gang bang" to another, save that I had learned, as B. had yet to learn, that tomorrow the pain would be even greater.

Frederick Exley

#3. In football a man was asked to do a difficult and brutal job, and he either did it or got out.

Frederick Exley

#4. Then he lost all coherence and began a hysterical giggle, compounded with a slight twitch and very pronounced emission of saliva from his mouth. When he finally fell silent, the stillness was of that horrified kind that follows a fart in a Methodist church.

Frederick Exley

#5. If it comes at all, Emerson has cautioned that one's call might not come for years. If it doesn't, he remarks it as only a reflection of the universe's faith in one's abstinence, nothing to move the heart to fret

Frederick Exley