The Gambler

"... Tell me have you any occupation except gambling?"
"No none ..."
He began cross-examining me. I knew nothing. I scarcely looked into the newspapers, and had literally not opened a single book all that time.
"You've grown rusty," he observed. "You have not only given up life, all your interests, private and public, the duties of a man and a citizen, your friends (and you really had friends) - and you have not only given up your objects, such as they were, all but gambling - you have even given up your memories. I remember you and at an intense and ardent moment of you life; but I am sure you have forgotted all the best feelings that you had then; your dreams, your most genuine desires do not rise above pair, impair, rouge, noir, and the twelve middle numbers, and so on, I am sure!"

from The Gambler: Fyodor Dostoyevsky