“Why do we want to test people for drugs and alcohol? Why don't we test them from stupidity, illiteracy and avarice? The place would be better.”

“A little learning is a dangerous thing

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain

And drinking largely sobers us again.”

-Alexander Pope

Picasso's The Absinthe Drinker

"I just wanted to find out where the boundaries were. I've found out there aren't any. I wanted to be stopped but no one will stop me." Damien Hirst

from Pete Doherty's prison diary: 

February 5 

For my own sake - because it feels like they have the power to cut off my head - I must become a hero, organise my life and obtain from it what they deny me. If I live, in order to continue to live with myself, I must have more talent than the most exquisite poet. These people can only put up with the tamed heroes - they don't know about heroism.