"No one, ever, wrote anything as well even after one drink as he would have done with out it"
About this Quote
A comedian’s best moralizing is done with a smirk, and Ring Lardner’s line lands like a barstool sermon aimed at the self-delusion that keeps liquor companies, bad poets, and late-night bravado in business. The target isn’t drinking as sin; it’s drinking as excuse - the cozy myth that alcohol unlocks some truer, freer genius. Lardner punctures that romance by making the claim brutally measurable: “as well” is the kill shot. Not happier, not bolder, not more interesting at 1 a.m., but better on the page. He’s defending craft against vibe.
The sentence itself performs the argument. The fussy commas (“No one, ever,”) mimic a heckler’s insistence, as if he’s heard this rationalization too many times and is now swatting it down with exaggerated patience. Even the clunky “with out” (often printed that way in older editions) feels like a deliberate plainspokenness: no lyrical fog, no permission to aestheticize impairment. Just a dry, stubborn fact.
Context matters: Lardner wrote in an era when hard drinking was both a masculine credential and a creative affectation, especially among journalists and literary circles adjacent to the Lost Generation. His humor comes from refusing to treat that pose as tragic or glamorous. The subtext is a warning about revision, discipline, and memory - the unsexy parts of writing that alcohol reliably sabotages. It’s comedy as quality control: laugh, then put the glass down and do the work.
The sentence itself performs the argument. The fussy commas (“No one, ever,”) mimic a heckler’s insistence, as if he’s heard this rationalization too many times and is now swatting it down with exaggerated patience. Even the clunky “with out” (often printed that way in older editions) feels like a deliberate plainspokenness: no lyrical fog, no permission to aestheticize impairment. Just a dry, stubborn fact.
Context matters: Lardner wrote in an era when hard drinking was both a masculine credential and a creative affectation, especially among journalists and literary circles adjacent to the Lost Generation. His humor comes from refusing to treat that pose as tragic or glamorous. The subtext is a warning about revision, discipline, and memory - the unsexy parts of writing that alcohol reliably sabotages. It’s comedy as quality control: laugh, then put the glass down and do the work.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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