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 Italy, Spain.. or Iran are the best places to pick saffron. If you want to pick opium poppies you go to Burma or South-East Asia. And if you want to pick novel ideas, you go to Paris.

Greatness is an opiate.

Sleep is my lover now, my forgetting, my opiate, my oblivion.

Several medical professional organizations acknowledge the utility of opioid therapy and many case series and large surveys report satisfactory reductions in pain, improvement in function and minimal risk of addiction.

Despite what appears to be a low risk of addiction in naïve, chronic pain patients, it is reasonable to ask how much harm is actually done to patients with chronic pain by withholding opiate analgesics.