How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from The Lost Weekend.
Quote #4
DON: I'm a writer. I've just started a novel. As a matter a fact I've started several, but I never seem to finish one.
As we see in this flashback, Don's terminal case of writer's block has been afflicting him for some time. This is also our first real hint that his failure as a writer might be the root of his addiction.
Quote #5
DON: The reason is me—what I am. Or rather, what I'm not, what I wanted to become and didn't.
HELEN: What is it you want to be so much?
DON: A writer. Silly, isn't it?
The fact that Don sees his dream of becoming a writer as "silly" shows that he's all but given up. That's a real bummer. Instead of picking up the pieces and moving on with his life, however, he starts falling down a deep, dark hole of depression that just so happens to filled with whiskey. The rest, as they say, is history.
Quote #6
DON: I reached my peak when I was nineteen, sold a piece to the Atlantic Monthly, reprinted in the Reader's Digest. Who wants to stay in college when he's Hemingway?
Interestingly, Don feels so dissatisfied about his failed writing career because he was once a real literary hot shot. He's like the star high school athlete who tries and fails to make it in the big leagues. What's more, these early successes gave him such high expectations for the future that they could never hope to be met.