i'm going to type this out just for you, george. i started reading
welcome to the monkey house, kurt vonnegut's collection of short stories (1968), today. this is from the preface. i quit smoking a couple months ago.
Quote:
My sister smoked too much. My father smoked too much. My mother smoked too much. I smoke too much. My brother used to smoke too much, and then he gave it up, which was a miracle on the order of the loaves and fishes.
And one time a pretty girl came up to me at a cocktail party, and she asked me, "What are you doing these days?"
"I am committing suicide by cigarette," I replied.
She thought that was reasonably funny. I didn't. I thought it was hideous that I should scorn life that much, sucking away on cancer sticks. My brand is Pall Mall. The authentic suicides ask for Pall Malls. The dilettantes ask for Pell Mells.
The public health authorities never mention the main reason many Americans have for smoking heavily, which is that smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide.
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