"Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine or idealism."
— Carl Gustav Jung

"I admire addicts. In a world where everybody is waiting for some blind, random disaster or some sudden disease, the addict has the comfort of knowing what will likely wait for him down the road. He's taken some control over his ultimate fate, and his addiction keeps the cause of his death from being a total surprise.
In a way, being an addict is very proactive."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Choke)

"Karl Marx: "Religion is the opiate of the masses."

Carrie Fisher "I did masses of opiates religiously."
— Carrie Fisher (Postcards from the Edge)

"Who shall I shoot? You choose. Now, listen very carefully: where's your coffee? You've got coffee, haven't you? C'mon, everyone's got coffee! Spill the beans!"
— Terry Pratchett (Monstrous Regiment)

"Every habit he's ever had is still there in his body, lying dormant like flowers in the desert. Given the right conditions, all his old addictions would burst into full and luxuriant bloom."
— Margaret Atwood

"A Short Alternative Medical Dictionary
Definitions courtesy of Dr Lemuel Pillmeister (also known as Lemmy)

Addiction - When you can give up something any time, as long as it's next Tuesday.
Cocaine - Peruvian Marching Powder. A stimulant that has the extraordinary effect that the more you do, the more you laugh out of context.
Depression - When everything you laugh at is miserable and you can't seem to stop.
Heroin - A drug that helps you to escape reality, while making it much harder to cope when you are recaptured.
Psychosis - When everybody turns into tiny dolls and they have needles in their mouths and they hate you and you don't care because you have THE KNIFE! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
— Nikki Sixx (The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star)

""Whether you sniff it smoke it eat it or shove it up your ass the result is the same: addiction." "
— William S. Burroughs

"LOVE? It's like a cigarrette. you get addicted fast, but it slowly and painfully kills you from the inside out. "
— alli ward

"I got addicted. News, particularly daily news, is more addictive than crack cocaine, more addictive than heroin, more addictive than cigarettes. "
— Dan Rather

"The Moth don't care when he sees The Flame.
He might get burned, but he's in the game.
And once he's in, he can't go back, he'll
Beat his wings 'til he burns them black...
No, The Moth don't care when he sees The Flame. . .
The Moth don't care if The Flame is real,
'Cause Flame and Moth got a sweetheart deal.
And nothing fuels a good flirtation,
Like Need and Anger and Desperation...
No, The Moth don't care if The Flame is real. . . "
— Aimee Mann

"He had tried to explain the way he felt to Danny once, about compulsive behavior and time rushing too fast and the Internet and drugs. Danny had only lifted one of his slender, mobile eyebrows and stared at him in smirking confusion. Danny did not think coke and computers were anything alike. But Jude had seen the way people hunched over their screens, clicking the refresh button again and again, waiting for some crucial if meaningless hit of information, and he thought it was almost exactly the same."
— Joe Hill (Heart-Shaped Box: A Novel)

"My throat tightened, but I held back the tears and reminded myself that withdrawing from a woman is no different than kicking a drug; you feel shaky and you want it, but eventually the need passes, and you feel restored."
— Keith Ablow (Denial)

"I am not your victim because you are not a predator any more than a bottle of scotch stalks an alcoholic."
— Sue William Silverman (Love Sick: One Woman's Journey through Sexual Addiction)

"In the beginning war looks and feels like love. But unlike love it gives nothing in return but an ever-deepening dependence, like all narcotics, on the road to self-destruction. It does not affirm but places upon us greater and greater demands. It destroys the outside world until it is hard to live outside war's grip. It takes a higher and higher dose to achieve any thrill. Finally, one ingests war only to remain numb."
— Chris Hedges (War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning)

"I feel very privileged to hear how somebody used to run around stickin' people up and stealing cars, and now they're gettin' their life back together... I just love the stories. The stories of the fallen world, they excite us. That's the interesting stuff." "
— Denis Johnson

"No one wants to admit we're addicted to music. That's just not possible. No one's
addicted to music and television and radio. We just need more of it, more channels, a
larger screen, more volume. We can't bear to be without it, but no, nobody's addicted.
We could turn it off anytime we wanted.
I fit a window frame into a brick wall. With a little brush, the size for fingernail polish, I
glue it. The window is the size of a fingernail. The glue smells like hair spray. The smell
tastes like oranges and gasoline."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Lullaby)

""My heart hurts so lovingly tender, yet, so benzo violently""
— S.K. Torma

"Observe how many people evade, rationalize and drive their minds into a state of blind stupor, in dread of discovering that those they deal with- their "loved ones" or friends or business associates or political rulers- are not merely mistaken, but evil. Observe that this dread leads them to sanction, to help and to spread the very evil whose existence they fear to acknowledge."
— Ayn Rand (The Virtue of Selfishness)

"A man who can't bear to share his habits is a man who needs to quit them."
— Stephen King