Jack L. Chalker Quotes

On the soft bed of luxury many kingdoms have expired.

Luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury.

Luxury is an enticing pleasure, a bastard mirth, which hath honey in her mouth, gall in her heart, and a sting in her tail.

To me, the word 'decadent' is so difficult to use; it's a very sensitive word, in a way.

The love of Luxury grows by what it feeds upon.

I have always thought of sophistication as rather a feeble substitute for decadence.

I'm a simple man. All I want is enough sleep for two normal men, enough whiskey for three, and enough women for four.

Luxury! more perilous to youth than storms or quicksand, poverty or chains.

Luxury is anything you don't need, right? I mean, you need food, water, clothing, shelter... but good wine, good food, beautiful interiors, nice clothes; those aren't necessities, they are luxuries - it's all luxury.

I'm someone who likes to live it up.

It's so nice to slip into the lap of luxury.

Pleasures bring effeminacy, and effeminacy foreruns ruin; such conquests, without blood or sweat, sufficiently do revenge themselves upon their intemperate conquerors.

The whole point of extravagance is to act like a fool and feel like a fool, but enjoy it.

Luxury is more deadly than any foe.

An excessive indulgence in the pleasures of social life constitutes the great interests of a luxuriant and opulent age.

And the small ripple spilt upon the beach Scarcely o'erpass'd the cream of your champagne, When o'er the brim the sparkling bumpers reach, That spring-dew of the spirit! the heart's rain! Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach Who please,—the more because they preach in vain,— Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after.

Booze, broads and bullshit. If you got all that, what else do you need?

I like extravagance. Letters which give the postman a stiff back to carry, books which overflow from their covers, sexuality which bursts the thermometers.

I love this word decadence, all shimmering in purple and gold. It suggests the subtle thoughts of ultimate civilization, a high literary culture, a soul capable of intense pleasures. It throws off bursts of fire and the sparkle of precious stones. It is redolent of the rouge of courtesans, the games of the circus, the panting of the gladiators, the spring of wild beasts, the consuming in flames of races exhausted by their capacity for sensation, as the tramp of an invading army sounds.

O Luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree!

One defining symptom of decadence is a fondness for vast and nonsensical extravagance.

Luxury is a necessity that begins where necessity ends

People don't want to hear about me having leather walls or gold toilets.

For me, life is not about gold taps and marble all over the place.

Rich men's houses are seldom beautiful, rarely comfortable, and never original. It is a constant source of surprise to people of moderate means to observe how little a big fortune contributes to Beauty.