CIGARS & VIF (Very Important Friends)
"Eating and sleeping are the only activities that should be allowed to interrupt a man's enjoyment of his cigar." Mark Twain
"I smoke in moderation. Only one cigar at a time." Mark Twain
"I pledged myself to smoke but one cigar a day. I kept the cigar waiting until bedtime, then I had a luxurious time with it. But desire persecuted me every day and all day long. I found myself hunting for larger cigars... within the month my cigar had grown to such proportions I could have used it as a crutch." Mark Twain
"I ordinarily smoke fifteen cigars during my five hours' labours, and if my interest reaches the enthusiastic point, I smoke more. I smoke with all my might, and allow no intervals." Mark Twain
“It has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain when awake.” Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. Among his novels are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called "The Great American Novel".
"Smoking has a sedative effe upon the nerves, and enables a man to bear the sorrows of his life (of which everyone has his share) not only decently, but dignifiedly." George Borrow
George Henry Borrow (5 July 1803 – 26 July 1881) was an English author who wrote novels and travelogues based on his experiences traveling around Europe. Over the course of his wanderings, he developed a close affinity with the Romani people of Europe, who figure prominently in his work. His best known books are The Bible in Spain, the autobiographical Lavengro, and The Romany Rye, about his time with the English Romanichal (gypsies).
"A good smoker, like a good lover, always takes his time with a cigar." Guillermo Cabrera Infante
"Cigarettes are for chain-smoking, cigars must be smoked one at a time, peaceably, with all the leisure in the world. Cigarettes are of the instant, cigars are for eternity." G. Cabera Infante
Guillermo Cabrera Infante Gibara, 22 April 1929 – 21 February 2005) was a Cuban novelist, essayist, translator, screenwriter, and critic; in the 1950s he used the pseudonym G. Caín.
"The best cigar in the world is the one you prefer to smoke on special occasions, enabling you to relax and enjoy that which gives you maximum pleasure." Zino Davidoff
"A cigar ought not to be smoked solely with the mouth, but with the hand, the eyes, and with the spirit." Zino Davidoff
“If your wife doesn’t like the aroma of your cigar, change your wife.” Zino Davidoff
Zino Davidoff, tobacco merchant: born Kiev 11 February 1906; married (one daughter); died Geneva 14 January 1994. His family, to escape Tsarist pogroms, moved to Istanbul, then Geneva, where his father set up a tobacco shop. His taste for cigars dated from the mid-1920s when his father sent him first to Cuba, where he apprenticed with a Senor Palacios, proprietor of the Hoyo de Monterrey cigar company. Up to the time of his death, he smoked two cigars a day, one after lunch and the second after supper.
"For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State, They arrive at their conclusions largely inarticulate. Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none; But sometimes in a smoking room, one learns why things were done." Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)[1] was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist.
"A woman is just a script, but a cigar is a motion picture." Samuel Fuller
Samuel Michael Fuller (August 12, 1912 – October 30, 1997) was an American screenwriter, novelist, and film director known for low-budget, understated genre movies with controversial themes. Fuller wrote his first screenplay for Hats Off in 1936, and made his directorial debut with the Western I Shot Jesse James (1949). He would continue to direct several other Westerns and war thrillers throughout the 1950s.
"Women are jealous of cigars... they regard them as a strong rival."
William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray (18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863) was a British novelist, writer and author of the 19th century. He is known for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.
"If I paid $10 for a cigar, first I'd make love to it, then I'd smoke it."
George Burns
"If I had taken my doctor's advice and quit smoking when he advised me to, I wouldn't have lived to go to his funeral." George Burns
"When they saw me walking down the street smoking a cigar, they'd say, 'Hey, that 14-year-old kid may be going places.' Of course it's also a good prop on the stage... When you can't think of what you are supposed to say next, you take a puff on your cigar until you do think of your next line." George Burns
George Burns (January 20, 1896 – March 9, 1996) was an American comedian, actor, singer, and writer. He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, radio, film and television. His arched eyebrow and cigar-smoke punctuation became familiar trademarks for over three quarters of a century.
"Smoking is indispensable if one has nothing to kiss." Sigmund Freud
"Cigars served me for precisely fifty years as protection and a weapon in the combat of life... I owe to the cigar a great intensification of my capacity to work and a facilitation of my self-control." Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst.
"By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall know the texture of men's souls." John Galsworthy
John Galsworthy (14 August 1867 – 31 January 1933) was an English novelist and playwright. Notable works include The Forsyte Saga (1906–1921) and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932.
"Cognac and cigars... it's like finding the perfect woman. When you've got her, why go chasing after another? " Michael Nouri
Michael Nouri (born December 9, 1945) is an American television and film actor.
He may be best known for his role as Nick Hurley, in the 1983 film Flashdance. He has had recurring roles in numerous television series, including NCIS as Eli David, the father of Mossad officer (later Special Agent) Ziva David, The O.C. as Dr. Neil Roberts, and Damages as Phil Grey.
"The most futile and disastrous day seems well spent when it is reviewed through the blue, fragrant smoke of a Havana Cigar." Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (8 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies and travel books. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer of books. His most famous works include the early satires Decline and Fall (1928) and A Handful of Dust (1934), the novel Brideshead Revisited (1945) and the Second World War trilogy Sword of Honour (1952–61). Waugh is recognised as one of the great prose stylists of the English language in the 20th century.
"They had no good cigars there, my lord; and I left the place in disgust." Alfred Lord Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular British poets.
"Any cigar smoker is friend, because I know how he feels." Alfred de Musset
Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay (11 December 1810 – 2 May 1857) was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist. Along with his poetry, he is known for writing the autobiographical novel La Confession d'un enfant du siècle (The Confession of a Child of the Century).
"I drink a great deal. I sleep a little, and I smoke cigar after cigar. That is why I am in two-hundred-percent form." Winston Churchill
“My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.” Winston Churchill
"My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars." Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill (30 November, 1874 – 24 January, 1965) was a British politician and statesman who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. In 1895, during the Cuban War of Independence, Churchill and fellow officer Reginald Barnes travelled to Cuba to observe the Spanish fight the insurgent Cuban guerrillas. While there, he soon acquired a taste for Havana cigars, which he would smoke for the rest of his life.
"Ah, if only I had brought a cigar with me! This would have established my identity." Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the 20th century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.
"That's why I write in so many cigar-smoking heroes and villians who chomp their cigars." Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, writer, and producer who worked in theatre, radio, and film. He is remembered for his innovative work in all three: in theatre, most notably Caesar (1937), a Broadway adaptation of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar; in radio, the legendary 1938 broadcast "The War of the Worlds"; and in film, Citizen Kane (1941), consistently ranked as one of the greatest films ever made.
"I started smoking these little Italian cigars just so there was some of that smell in the air." Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola (born April 7, 1939), also credited as Francis Coppola, is a semi-retired American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered to have been a central figure of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking.
After directing The Rain People (1969), he co-wrote the 1970 film Patton, earning the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay along with co-writer Edmund H. North. His directorial prominence was cemented with the release in 1972 of The Godfather, a film which revolutionized movie-making in the gangster genre, earning praise from both critics and the public before winning three Academy Awards—including his second Oscar(Best Adapted Screenplay, with Mario Puzo), Best Picture, and his first nomination for Best Director.
"I promised myself that if I ever I had some money that I would savor a cigar each day after lunch and dinner. This is the only resolution of my youth that I have kept, and the only realized ambition which has not brought disillusion." Somerset Maugham
William Somerset Maugham CH (25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965), better known as W. Somerset Maugham, was a British playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest-paid author during the 1930s.
"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices, have very few virtues." Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War—its bloodiest war and perhaps its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. In doing so, he preserved the Union, paved the way to the abolition of slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.
"There's something about smoking a cigar that feels like a celebration. It's like a fine wine. There's a quality, a workmanship, a passion that goes into the smoking of a fine cigar." Demi Moore
Demi Gene Guynes (born November 11, 1962), professionally known as Demi Moore, is an American actress, former songwriter, and model. Moore dropped out of high school at age 16 to pursue an acting career and appeared in the men's magazine Oui in 1981. After making her film debut later that year, she appeared on the soap opera General Hospital and subsequently gained recognition for her work in Blame It on Rio (1984) and St. Elmo's Fire (1985). Her first film to become both a critical and commercial hit was About Last Night... (1986), which established her as a Hollywood star.
“Fresh air makes me throw up. I can’t handle it. I’d rather be around three Denobili cigars blowing in my face all night.” Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert Sinatra (December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer, actor, and producer who was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide.
“Given the choice between a woman and a cigar, I will always choose the cigar.” Groucho Marx
Julius Henry Marx (October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977), known professionally as Groucho Marx, was an American writer, comedian, stage, film and television star. He was known as a master of quick wit and is widely considered one of the best comedians of the modern era.
