5 Quotes & Sayings By Jerzy Pilch

Jerzy Pilch was born in Warsaw in 1950. In the 1960s he was expelled from school, after which he started working as a messenger for a trade union's leadership. In the 1970s he became a journalist, publishing articles in various newspapers and magazines. He has worked as a freelance writer since the 1980s and is the author of over twenty books of fiction and non-fiction Read more

Two of his books have been translated into English: The Path of Everyman and The Path of Exile.

My tongue thirsty for superiority, maybe even immortality, ruled me....
1
My tongue thirsty for superiority, maybe even immortality, ruled me. I was ruled by my tongue. I was ruled by women. I was ruled by alcohol. Jerzy Pilch
2
One cannot properly drink without self-deception: the lips have to deny the liquor that just passed down the throat. It was surely for the relief of drunkards that the Lord God did not write upon the stone tablets the commandment: thou shalt not lie. The word has to deny the addiction. Among the tribe of alcoholics, lying is a badge of honor - the truth is first an indiscretion, later an affront, and finally a source of despair. If you truly drink, you have to announce to all and sundry that you do not drink; if you admit you drink, that means you do not truly drink. True all-out drinking has to be concealed; anyone who reveals it is giving in, confessing to helplessness, and all that remains for him is weeping, the gnashing of teeth, and the 12 step program. Jerzy Pilch
3
You don't 'love' people when they are 'nice'. Don't you see that's the same as saying 'what's in it for me'? Jerzy Pilch
4
You're the measure of my true decline. Your home isn't in the underworld, you live in the back room of the liquor store. My eternally hung-over angel, my Satan crawling like an amber worm from a bottle of Zoladkowa Gorzka. Jerzy Pilch