Only frustrated people smoke too much and only lonely people are frustrated.
Cigarettes and tiny liquor bottles. Just what you’d expect, inside her new «Balenciaga?»
Strapped in the chair of the city's gas chamber
Why I'm here I can't quite remember.
The surgeon general says it's hazardous to breathe
I'd have another cigarette but I can't see.
Tell me who you're going to believe?
– Come on, man, have some decency here, 'Worm'. You can buy all the smokes you want in half an hour.
– What are you talking about?! I won these fair and square...
– You don't even smoke, 'Worm'.
– Jesus, you guys are such fuckin' babies! You know that? If you're determined to die of cancer, you really oughta learn how to play cards.
But most of all, lieutenant, I resent your perfume, however subtle it may be, competing with the aroma of my fine three-dollar-and-fifty-nine cent cigar, which I will happily put out this very instant if the phallic nature of it happens to offend your goddamn fragile sensibilities. Does it?
— But most of all, what I resent is your perfume, however subtle it may be, competing with the aroma of my fine $3.59 cigar, which I will put out this instant if the phallic nature of it happens to offend your goddamned fragile sensibilities! Does it?
— No, sir Chief of Staff.
— «No, sir», what?
— The shape doesn't bother me, sir. Just the goddamned sweet stench.
Funny thing about these e-cigarettes. I miss the satisfaction of burning something down to fuckin' ashes in your hand.
— Let's go watch a movie.
— What? Hmm? Um, I'm... I'm free later this week. We could...
— No, I mean now.
— You could be an ax murderer.
— There's always that possibility. Come on, Hazel Grace, take a risk.
— I don't... Really? That is disgusting!
— What?
— What, do you think that that's cool or something? You just ruined this whole thing.
— The whole thing?
— Yes! This whole thing. You were doing really well, too. God. There's always a hamartia, isn't there? And yours is, even though you had freaking cancer, you're willing to give money to a corporation for the chance to acquire even more cancer? Let me just tell you that not being able to breathe sucks. It totally sucks!
— "Hamartia"?
— It's a fatal flaw.
— Ah, fatal... Hazel Grace, they don't actually hurt you unless you light them.
— Hmm?
— I never lit one. It's a metaphor, see? You put the thing that does the killing right between your teeth, but you never give it the power to kill you.
— A metaphor.
Unfortunately, once I did learn to smoke, I couldn't stop. I escalated to two packs a day very quickly, and stayed that way for about ten years. When I decided to stop, I adopted the method that my father had used when he quit. He would carry a cigarette in his shirt pocket, and every time he felt like smoking, he would pull out the cigarette and confront it: "Who stronger? You? Me?" Always the answer was the same: "I stronger." Back the cigarette would go, until the next craving. It worked for him, and it worked for me.