Reason I know, is only a drug, and, as such, its effects are never permanent. But, like the juice of the poppy, it often gives a temporary relief.

In November, when our nation remembers her fallen soldiers and honours the lost youth of my generation, the Prime Minister, government leaders and the hollow men of business affix paper poppies to their lapels and...

And the heart sounds like a sour conch,calls, oh sea, oh lament, oh molten panic,scattered in the unlucky and disheveled waves:the sea reports sonorouslyon its languid shadows, its green poppies.

88.People wonder why so many writers come to live in Paris. I’ve been living ten years in Paris and the answer seems simple to me: because it’s the best place to pick ideas. Just like...

In general I strive for greatness and rational achievement, but I admit to you I’ve a terrible fondness for women, a tendency towards drunkenness, and a weakness for the fumes of the poppy—opium and other...

Opium: that terrible truth serum. Dark secrets guarded for a lifetime can be divulged with carefree folly after a sip of the black smoke.

Every November of my boyhood, we put on red poppies and attended highly patriotic services in remembrance of those who had ‘given’ their lives. But on what assurance did we know that these gifts had...