Tweet Tobacco

Vincent Vega: I didn't smoke from 1944 to 1959. I haven't smoked since 1989. There was that thirty year period in between when everybody smoked, including yours truly. I smoked Winstons, two packs a day. In college, during finals week — yeah, college! Where do think I got my extensive vocabulary and philosophical outlook? — in college, I could hit four packs a day. But I quit 21 years ago. Do the math. I smoked for 45% of my life. Haven't smoked for 21 years.

Jules Winnfield: I still get a big scoop of medical sneer with a thick topping of own damn fault and a cherry on top ("You'll feel so much better!") whenever I see a new doctor, especially young ones, kids from third world countries.

Mia Wallace: The thing about smoking is, don't quit. If you quit, you'll gain 100 pounds. Then they'll have things to say about being fat. Tub of lard, wiggle while you walk fat. Heart disease, colon cancer, stroke, diabetes. The other way all you got was lung cancer. Maybe.

Jules: You won't "feel better" if you quit, either. That's a damn lie. You'll be in withdrawal for four days, physically, but maybe eighty years, spiritually and emotionally. You'll go through grief. Tobacco was a crutch and a friend. Even now, thinking about withdrawal, my insides shrivel, freeze and die. Get good at saying No. You'll need it. You'll turn into a hungry ghost, a feeling that will be with you the rest of your fat, tub of lard life.

Vincent: Remember this one? "I started smoking to prove I was a man. Now, I'm trying to quit to prove the same thing." (Donald Kaul, I think.) That's your brains on Mink & Cream o' Wheat, the official party line. [Expletive] If you're motivated enough, you'll quit smoking. And then you'll pay the piper for it.

Jules: Word is, Foo', you did this to yourself.

Vincent: Lots of support out there.

Jules: Personally, I think tobacco is a vastly underestimated psychoactive drug. It has effects, not all of which are worthless. It only has a mild euphoria, sure, but it seems to induce a kind of relaxed, comfortable free association of ideas, too. For you academics, that can be useful. And is nicotine the only active alkaloid in that leaf? With too much coffee and a sudden stressful life situation, it tends to turn people into ranting paranoids.

Vincent: Addictive, yes. Like oxygen. Ask your grandma how expensive oxygen can be.

Jules: There's more money in pot. Tobacco is outdated. And that supercilious reflection you get back from people who might have been a tad bit better trained makes me a little mad, a little sad.

Mia: This guy came to the door. He's looking for lawn work, house painting and so on, but he reeks of stale cigar smoke all over his breath and clothes. My eyes stung from six feet away. I had to open a window. It was so unpleasant, it made me think about tobacco.

Vincent: You answered your own door? [Exasperation] That's ironic, though. Let's change the subject.