Home > Topic > opiates
1 " ligion is the opiate of the masses." " I did masses of opiates religiously. "
2 " As it happens I am comfortable with the Michael Laskis of this world, with those who live outside rather than in, those in whom the sense of dread is so acute that they turn to extreme and doomed commitments; I know something about dread myself, and appreciate the elaborate systems with which some people manage to fill the void, appreciate all the opiates of the people, whether they are as accessible as alcohol and heroin and promiscuity or as hard to come by as faith in God or History. But of course I did not mention dread to Michael Laski, whose particular opiate is History. I did suggest “depression,” did venture that it might have been “depressing” for him to see only a dozen or so faces at his last May Day demonstration, but he told me that depression was an impediment to the revolutionary process, a disease afflicting only those who do not have ideology to sustain them. "
― Joan Didion , Slouching Towards Bethlehem
3 " Why then do we wonder that heroin is everywhere? In our isolation, heroin thrives; that's its natural habitat. And our very search for painlessness led us to it. Heroin is, I believe, the final expression of values we have fostered for thirty-five years. It turns every addict into narcissistic, self-absorbed, solitary hyper-consumers. A life that finds opiates urns away from family and community and devotes itself entirely to self-gratification by buying and consuming one product - the drug that makes being alone not just all right, but preferable. "
― Sam Quinones , Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic
4 " You know how they say that religion is the opiate of the masses? Well, I took masses of opiates religiously. "
― Carrie Fisher , Wishful Drinking
