Gary Shteyngart Quotes

You can't drown yourself in drink. I've tried, you float.

It's difficult to talk about, you know, my inadequacies, my inability to stay sober when I'm a relatively bright man and I've had a lot of great blessings and a lot of great opportunities.

The plan was to drink until the pain is over, But what's worse, the pain or the hangover?

If I hadn't been a drunkard, I probably would have committed suicide long ago.

Drugs or overeating or alcohol or sex, it was all just another way to find peace. To escape what we know. Our education. Our bite of the apple.

I'd be in my hotel room, smoking too much, drinking, going to clubs, just being numb. That was being in jail to me. I wasn't happy at all on the streets. That was the addict speaking.

My life sucks when I’m only half-aware of it. If I quit drinking and saw what it’s really like, I’d probably jump off a bridge.

In my lowest moments, the only reason I didn't commit suicide was that I knew I wouldn't be able to drink any more if I was dead.

Nobody would want to leave that film to go get high.

Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.

I have a lot of friends who are trying to clean up their act, or that are still making trouble for themselves, so I'm definitely well-versed on what goes on in the mind and the heart of a person who self-destructs as their coping mechanism, and also what they're like when you take their preferred substance away.

You don't have to listen to those mean girls. They're just there to make you upset and make you feel bad about yourself. And you know, inside, they feel bad about themselves too. But they don't wanna admit it to anybody.

I'm not going to lie: I still have days when I walk by the mirror on my way to the shower and think, 'Oh God, I didn't just see that!'

I had a pretty bad time when I was an undergraduate at Cornell University. I failed out of school. I was much, much heavier.

And I was ashamed of myself for feeling like I had to do that in order to look a certain way. I felt misshapen, just not natural anymore. And I think it was a big stimulator of my drug use.

This is the way I look when I'm sober. That's enough to make a person drink, wouldn't you say?

Everybody needs a way out of that pain. Many people choose drugs and alcohol. Some people obsessively exercise or develop strange dietary habits, which is what I did. At least it got me toward a path of healthier living.

I was perhaps the worst student you have ever seen. You know, I thought I was stupid, all my classmates thought I was stupid, so there was general agreement.

I took a bottle of pills. I'd been in Europe and I had a lot of absinthe and I was just drinking and drinking, trying to, you know, just shut my body down.

I fought back, got injured again and I had to have another operation. I got down and depressed and I think I was drinking more than I should. Well, I know I was.

I never got to the point of needing drugs or thinking about giving up myself.

I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy.

I was just a lot smarter about not getting caught. I mean, I never stuck anything in my arm, but I certainly enjoyed my youth.

I lost my second marriage because of drinking, and I loved the woman very much. But I thought I needed booze to write. I'm glad I was disabused.

I'm like this wiry freak they pulled out of a bar two months ago and said, 'Let's throw it on the wall and see if it sticks.'