What is a good toast?

January 14, 2006 3:04 PM

I need a good toast.

I'm going out for cheap beer with some old high school friends tonight, and could use a good toast or three. Google does have a lot of them, but what are your favorites?

posted by Loto to human relations (24 comments total)

I'm very fond of using "To sobriety!"
posted by ugf at 3:28 PM on January 14, 2006

any of the ones from the last time this question was asked.
posted by softlord at 3:35 PM on January 14, 2006

I suggest wry.
posted by kindall at 4:13 PM on January 14, 2006

The health of the Queen.

"Here's to your death. May I build your coffin myself from the wood of a hundred year old oak tree I plant tomorrow."

The memory of the Emperor Norton.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 4:32 PM on January 14, 2006

To the ladies. May we fall into their arms without falling into their hands.
posted by KRS at 6:04 PM on January 14, 2006

There's an Arabic expression I like: "may you bury me."

As in: "I like you so much I hope I never have to live without you."

Just stand up, raise your glass, sweep it across the room making eye contact with as many people as possible, and say: "I hope you all attend my funeral."
posted by scarabic at 6:27 PM on January 14, 2006

I liked one I heard in snowy Zakopane this New Year's Eve.
"Got the time? Yes? Then let's drink to even more time. To drink. "
posted by ruelle at 6:33 PM on January 14, 2006

"Here's to us; none like us; more's the pity."
posted by S.C. at 6:51 PM on January 14, 2006

Health and a long life to you.
Land without rent to you.
A child every year to you.
And if you can't go to heaven,
May you at least die in Ireland.
posted by frogan at 7:33 PM on January 14, 2006

S.C., that's a toned down version of an old Scottish toast:
Here's to us! Who's like us?
Damn few, and they're all dead!
posted by scruss at 7:43 PM on January 14, 2006

"To the stomach!"
posted by TwelveTwo at 8:18 PM on January 14, 2006

alternative: "Here's to the liver."
posted by TwelveTwo at 8:18 PM on January 14, 2006

I like the British Royal Navy toasts I learned from the Patrick O'Brian series. Here's one (tongue in cheek, I'm a faithful girl after all, but it's funny):

"To wives and sweethearts. May they never meet!"

And, simply,

"Confusion to our enemies!"
posted by Miko at 8:49 PM on January 14, 2006

She offered her honor
I honored her offer
And all the night long
I was on her and off her

(admittedly cheesy, best used when drinking with "the guys")
posted by funkbrain at 10:34 PM on January 14, 2006

I love the funny toast Fred Willard gave in the movie Roxanne:

"I'd rather be with the people in this room, than the best people in the world!"
posted by any major dude at 1:00 AM on January 15, 2006

Good friends in hard times and hard friends in good times.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:12 AM on January 15, 2006

249 toasts
posted by caddis at 5:53 AM on January 15, 2006

To our women, and our horses
And the men who ride them.
posted by filmgeek at 8:45 AM on January 15, 2006

Here's to fighting, cheating, stealing and drinking.
If you fight, may you fight for a brother.
If you cheat, may you cheat death.
If you steal, may you steal a lady's heart.
And if you drink, may you drink with me.
- The Khorning brothers

May you roof never fall in, and those under it never fall out.
- Found in my teetotaller grandparent's place.

May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead.
- Don't remember where I saw this.
posted by Mozai at 10:51 AM on January 15, 2006

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. Scarabac, the funeral one went over great, putting perfectly how I felt about the company I was keeping last night.

Later in the night, after we had all drank too much, "To honor, if you can't come in her come on her" went over very well, also.
posted by Loto at 2:00 PM on January 15, 2006

Be drunken, always. That is the point; nothing else matters. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time weigh you down and crush you to the earth, be drunken continually.

Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry or with virtue, as you will. But be drunken.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace, or on the green grass in a ditch, or in the dreary solitude of your own room, you should awaken and find the drunkenness half or entirely gone, ask of the wind, of the wave, of the star, of the bird, of the clock, of all that flies, of all that speaks, ask what hour it is; and wind, wave, star, bird, or clock will answer you: "It is the hour to be drunken! Be Drunken, if you would not be the martyred slaves of Time; be drunken continually! With wine, with poetry or with virtue, as you will.

- Charles Baudelaire
posted by squirrel at 4:08 PM on January 15, 2006

That's great, squirrel. A keeper, thanks.
posted by Miko at 5:55 PM on January 15, 2006

May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live.
posted by jasondigitized at 9:00 AM on January 16, 2006

Champagne for my real friends, and real pain for my sham friends!
posted by kindall at 9:12 AM on January 17, 2006