Tobacco Quotes

“Tobacco is my favorite vegetable.”
― Frank Zappa

“After some time he felt for his pipe. It was not broken, and that was something. Then he felt for his pouch, and there was some tobacco in it, and that was something more. Then he felt for matches and he could not find any at all, and that shattered his hopes completely.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“You smoke?”
“Smoke? Do I look like a fucking idiot?”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“Tobacco’s a killer,” Kafuku said. “Being alive is a killer, if you think about it,” Misaki said.”
― Haruki Murakami, Men Without Women: Stories

“There has never been a 'war on drugs'! In our history we can only see an ongoing conflict amongst various drug users – and producers. In ancient Mexico the use of alcohol was punishable by death, while the ritualistic use of mescaline was highly worshipped. In 17th century Russia, tobacco smokers were threatened with mutilation or decapitation, alcohol was legal. In Prussia, coffee drinking was prohibited to the lower classes, the use of tobacco and alcohol was legal.”
― Sebastian Marincolo

“Tobacco, coffee, alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine, are weak dilutions. The surest poison is time.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“the wretcheder one is, the more one smokes; and the more one smokes, the wretcheder one gets—a vicious circle.”
― George Du Maurier, Peter Ibbetson

“Some people sought comfort from smoking, after discovering that their loved one had just been killed by the cancer.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Have you not reason then to be ashamed and to forbear this filthy novelty, so basely grounded, so foolishly received and so grossly mistaken in the right use thereof. In your abuse thereof sinning against God harming yourselves both in person and goods, and raking also thereby the marks and notes of vanity upon you by the custom thereof making yourselves to be wondered at by all foreign civil nations and by all strangers that come among you to be scorned and held in contempt; a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.”
― King James I of England - VI of Scotland

“Catherine had long come to the conclusion that removing the aroma of stale tobacco would be a three-step process. First you'd have to steam-clean the soft furnishings, then paint the walls, then knock the building down and scatter the rubble.”
― Mick Herron, Clown Town

“I had not been at all fair to myself, or to anyone or anything near me, by keeping my cigarettes right there next to me or in my shirt pocket throughout the years.”
― Earl Chinnici, Maybe You Should Move Those Away From You

“Today, it is the scent of honeysuckle that takes me back in time and lays me down near a barn. I pick a honeysuckle blossom, touch the trumpet to my nose and inhale. With sticky filthy fingers, I pinch the base of its delicate well then lick the drop of nectar. The sweet liquid makes me thirst for more, and I reach for another and another, the same hands that reach again and again for tobacco as I string. I separate honeysuckle blossoms and taste.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose

“Some mysterious revenge of nature has seen to it that no poem in praise of drink or tobacco (or snuff, if any) can succeed.”
― Kingsley Amis, The New Oxford Book of Light Verse

“His tobacco had a richly herbal smell, as though it was good for you.”
― Angela Carter, The Magic Toyshop

“I’m not just blowing smoke when I say that I hope this book and the story it tells helps inspire many people to fight back against their addiction to “tobacco cigarettes.” The cigarette addiction is not glamorous. The addiction does not make anyone appear to be fun, smart, or sexy. The addiction is not enjoyable in the least. Of course, if you were to ask thirty-six people why they smoke, I am sure twenty-nine will tell you that they enjoy smoking. I have also said this a few times. However, to find even one person who enjoys being addicted to cigarettes or who enjoys being addicted to poison is another story altogether. Over the years, I have often been in the company of “tobacco cigarette smokers” and yet I do not remember once when anybody said, “I enjoy being addicted to cigarettes” or “I really do enjoy my addiction to poisons” or “My addiction is what I enjoy most about smoking.”
― Earl Chinnici, Maybe You Should Move Those Away From You

“It is easy to put down Frances Trollope as a Tory embittered by her American business failure. But her observations on American manners, confirmed by many other observers foreign and domestic, actually provide a sharply drawn picture of daily life in the young republic. Most observers at the time agreed with her in finding Americans obsessively preoccupied with earning a living and relatively uninterested in leisure activities. Not only Tories but reformers like Martineau and Charles Dickens angered their hosts by complaining of the overwhelmingly commercial tone of American life, the worship of the 'almighty dollar.' Americans pursued success so avidly they seldom paused to smell the flowers. A kind of raw egotism, unsoftened by sociability, expressed itself in boastful men, demanding women, and loud children. The amiable arts of conversation and cooking were not well cultivated, foreigners complained; Tocqueville found American cuisine 'the infancy of the art' and declared one New York dinner he attended 'complete barbarism.' Despite their relatively broad distribution of prosperity, Americans seemed strangely restless; visitors interpreted the popularity of the rocking chair as one symptom of this restlessness. Another symptom, even more emphatically deplored, was the habit, widespread among males, of chewing tobacco and spitting on the floor. Women found their long dresses caught the spittle, which encouraged them to avoid male company at social events. Chewing tobacco thus reinforced the tendency toward social segregation of the sexes, with each gender talking among themselves about their occupations, the men, business and politics; the women, homemaking and children.”
― Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815 - 1848

“Je ne comprends pas que l'on puisse ne pas fumer. C'est se priver de toute façon de la meilleure part de l'existence et en tout cas d'un plaisir tout à fait éminent. Lorsque je m'éveille, je me réjouis déjà de pouvoir fumer pendant la journée, et pendant que je mange, j'ai la même pensée, oui, je peux dire qu'en somme je mange seulement pour pouvoir ensuite fumer, et je crois que j'exagère à peine. Mais un jour sans tabac, ce serait pour moi le comble de la fadeur, ce serait une journée absolument vide et insipide, et si, le matin, je devais me dire : "aujourd'hui je n'aurai rien à fumer", je crois que je n'aurais pas le courage de me lever, je te jure que je resterais couché. [...] Dieu merci ! on fume dans le monde entier ; ce plaisir, autant que je sache, n'est inconnu nulle part où l'on pourrait être jeté par les hasards de la vie. Même les explorateurs qui partent pour le pôle nord se pourvoient largement de provisions de tabac pour la durée de leurs pénibles étapes, et j'ai toujours trouvé cela sympathique lorsque je l'ai lu. Car on peut aller très mal - supposons par exemple que je sois dans un état lamentable -, aussi longtemps que j'aurai mon cigare, je le supporterai, je le sais bien ; il m'aiderait à tout surmonter.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

“A swift rhythm is played out by my hands, a cadence known only to those who have strung tobacco. To many, the meter and rhythm of stringing is the only poetry they've ever known.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose

“Stopping to have a smoke is a time-honored tradition non-smokers can’t understand.”
― Krzysztof Pacyński, A perfect Patricide: Part 1

“When you are staring at the face of such a formidable adversary as tobacco cigarette addiction, it can help significantly to have some powerful weapons in your arsenal. Knowledge is a remarkably powerful weapon against cigarette addiction.”
― Earl Chinnici, Maybe You Should Move Those Away From You

“...from the big tobacco barns there welled forth a fragrance that was for these Kentuckians, the soul of autumn. Oozing out into the sunshine from every crack in the great structures, it exhilarated like an elixir, like a long draught of some rich, spicy wine.”
― Edith Summers Kelley, Weeds

“Byd Manden paa samme Nadvær til Giæst,
Jeg veed dog du hannem behagelig est,
Saa lærr I sammen at snorke.
Du snuser, hand tygger, saa lever i toe,
Som Tiggere begge, med hiertelig Roe,
Og ingen kan anden beskylde.”
― Petter Dass, The Trumpet of Nordland

“-তুই প্রতিদিন সিগারেট খেয়ে যে পরিমাণ টাকা নষ্ট করস,সেগুলো বাচালে তোর এতোদিনে তিনটা মটরসাইকেল থাকতো।
-তুইতো সিগারেট খাস না।কই,তোর মটরসাইকেলগুলা দেখা তো।”
― Anupam Debashis Roy, সন্তান

“দেখে তাকে চেনাই যায়না।দাড়ি গোঁফের জঙ্গল।চোখ টকটকে লাল।চামড়া ঝুলে এসেছে।শরীরে একটা অশরীরী বার্ধক্য চলে এসেছে।এই বার্ধক্য বয়সের বার্ধক্য নয়,এই বার্ধক্য আজরাইলকে লোভে ফেলার জন্য জোর করে ডেকে আনা বার্ধক্য।”
― Anupam Debashis Roy, সন্তান

“From the first moment I started to uncover the infinite mysteries of baseball--like why players chose to wear certain numbers, what the brown stuff in players' mouths was, and just what the hell a balk entailed--I was hooked.”
― Greg Larson, Clubbie: A Minor League Baseball Memoir

“In the past, a lady of fashion would seductively smoke a long cigarette in an ivory holder; the modern idol of the betel age will probably be the same lady, but this time elegantly spitting out three table-spoons of blood-red betel-spit into an artistically crafted spittoon through teeth blackened by decades of chewing. When such a body offers you a little ground limestone, be aware that this is a gesture of the most genuine friendship.”
― Vojtěch Novotný, Notebooks from New Guinea: Field Notes of a Tropical Biologist

“IN 1993, after First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton put an end to smoking in the White House, Bill Clinton would sometimes retreat there to smoke a cigar in a celebratory moment, as he did after the United States rescued a soldier in Bosnia.”
― Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties

“Human use of tobacco began as early as 12,300 years ago, according to recent evidence unearthed from Utah, a few hours' drive north of where the tobacco hornworms that repelled the spiders were studied. Previously, the oldest evidence of tobacco use by Indigenous peoples of the Americas came from pipe residues dating to around 3,300 years ago. As scientists did with ‘Sid’ the Neanderthal, researchers can recover nicotine from the tar­ tar of human teeth discovered in the archaeological record. Tartar from both an Indigenous woman buried around 630 years ago and a man buried 420 years ago not far from where I live in what is now Oakland was positive for nicotine.”
― Noah Whiteman, Most Delicious Poison: The Story of Nature's Toxins―From Spices to Vices

“Abe held a palmful of loose-leaf tobacco. He called it semaa—SAY-mah—and asked if I'd like to offer some to give thanks for my dad. I held out my hand. He nudged my other hand.

"Left hand," he said. "Closer to your heart.”
― Angeline Boulley, Sisters in the Wind

“Cigarettes are just pacifiers for adults.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop