The Lost Weekend quotes

View Quote That was three years ago, Nat. That's a long time to keep fighting, to keep believing. She knows she's clutching a razor blade but she won't let go. Three years of it. I'm gonna do it now. It's all there, you heard it...That's why I didn't go away on that weekend, see, so I can be all alone up there and sit down at my typewriter. This time, I'm gonna do it, Nat! I'm gonna do it!...I'm going home. This time, I've got it. I'm gonna write.

View Quote [to a ringing telephone] Stop it, Helen, stop it, stop it. I'm all right. I just can't talk. Please stop it!

View Quote Come on, I need that liquor. I want it and I'm gonna get it. Do you understand? I'm gonna walk out of here with that quart of rye one way of another.

View Quote I'm gonna put this whole weekend down, minute by minute...The way I stood in there packing my suitcase, only my mind wasn't on the suitcase, and it wasn't on the weekend. Nor was it on the shirts I was putting in the suitcase either. My mind was hanging outside the window. It was suspended just about eighteen inches below. And out there in that great big concrete jungle, I wonder how many others that are like me. Poor bedeviled guys on fire with thirst. Such comical figures to the rest of the world as they stagger blindly towards another binge, another bender, another spree.

View Quote [to Don, seeing him back in the bar] Happy to have you back with the organization.

View Quote I live right on the corner house - you know, where the antique shop is, the one with the wooden Indian outside? They got the Indian sign on me, I always say...Second floor front.

View Quote [to Don] Save your saliva. I've had enough of you...What do you think I am? I break a business date. I buy me an evening purse, a facial, and new hairdo, and maybe you can do that to your ritzy friends, but you can't to me, understand? ...I waited half the night like it was the first date I ever had. The other half I was crying. ...You do like me a little, don't ya, honey?

View Quote The management insists. If we let you guys go home alone, a lot of you don't go home. You just hit the nearest bar and bounce right back again. What we call the quick ricochet...This department is sort of a half-way hospital, half-way jail...Listen, I can pick an alky with one eye shut. You're an alky. You'll come back. They all do. [gesturing toward other patients] Him, for instance. He shows up every month - just like the gas bill. And the one there with the glasses - another repeater. This is his forty-fifth trip. A big executive in the advertising business. A lovely fellow. Been coming here since 1927, good ol' Prohibition days. Say, you should have seen the joint then. This is nothing. Back then, we really had a turn-over. Standing-room only. Prohibition. That's what started most of these guys off - whoopee!

View Quote They'll happen to be a little floor show later on around here. It might get on your nerves...Ever have the DT's?...You will, brother...After all, you're just a freshman. Wait'll you're a sophomore. That's when you start seeing the little animals. You know that stuff about pink elephants? That's the bunk. It's little animals! Little tiny turkeys in straw hats. Midget monkeys coming through the keyholes. See that guy over there? With him it's beetles. Come the night, he sees beetles crawling all over him. Has to be dark though. It's like the doctor was just telling me - delirium is a disease of the night. Good night.

View Quote Old Lady: That's the nice young man who drinks.

View Quote Mrs. St. James: [about Don] A writer. What did he write? I never heard his name.

View Quote Mrs. Deveridge: I know what goes on in this house. I know Mr. Don Birnam. I knew all about him the first week they moved here five years ago. Heard those bottles rattle in the garbage can. I know all about you. You're Helen St. James, you're working on the Time Magazine, and you're his best girl. I also know he's not staying with any friends in Long Island. He's off on another toot and you know I'm darned right...I could have kicked him out fifty times - the last when two taxi drivers dumped him into the entrance hall out cold on the floor. With all my tenants going in and out and children leaving for school!...Well, I didn't put him out. Not as long as his brother could pay the rent. You couldn't help liking him anyway. He was so good-looking. He had such nice manners.

View Quote Don: Let me work it out my way, I'm trying. I'm trying!
Helen: I know you're trying, Don. We're both trying. You're trying not to drink and I'm trying not to love you.

View Quote Don: Shall we dance?
Gloria: You're awfully pretty, Mr. Birnam.
Don: I'll bet you tell that to all the boys.
Gloria: Why natch! Only with you, it's on the level.

View Quote Helen: If he's left alone, anything can happen. And I'm tied up at the office every minute, all Saturday, all Sunday, I can't look out for him. You know how he gets. He'll be run over by a car, he'll be arrested. He doesn't know what he's doing. A cigarette might fall from his mouth and he'll burn in bed.
Wick: If it happens, it happens and I hope it does. I've had six years of this. I've had my bellyfull...Who are we fooling? We've tried everything, haven't we? We've reasoned with him. We've baited him. We've watched him like a hawk. We've tried trusting him. How often have you cried? How often have I beaten him up? Scrape him out of a gutter and pump some kind of self-respect into him and back he falls, back in every time.
Helen: He's a sick person. It's as though there was something wrong with his heart or his lungs. You wouldn't walk out on him if he had an attack. He needs our help.
Wick: He won't accept our help. Not Don, he hates us. He wants to be alone with that bottle of his. It's all he gives a hang about. Why kid ourselves? He's a hopeless alcoholic. Let go of him, Helen. Give yourself a chance.