I think fear neutralizes alcohol, weakens it's anaesthetic power. It's good for small fears ; your boss, your wife, your bills, your dentist ; all right then to take a drink. But for big ones it doesn't do any good. Like water on blazing gasoline, it will only quicken and compound it. It takes sand, in the literal and slang sense, to smother the bonfire that is fear. And if you're out of sand, then you must burn up.
Cornell Woolrich
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Vincent Peters
Fitzgerald's valley of ashes tips it's hat to TS Eliot's The Waste Land, but it was also a feature of New York at the time. The Ash Dumps were mountainous piles of ash up to 90ft high, a malodorous stretch of swampland in which coal ash, cinders, garbage, and human waste had been dumped. Lone figures wandered the desolate heaps searching for treasure or anything they could sell - a perfect image of a nation squandering it's promise in search of a buck.
Sarah Churchwell
How We Misread The Great Gatsby
New Statesman
2025
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Jack Hughes
Satan in High Heels
