Top 100 Hunter Thompson Quotes
#1. I always lamented that I wasn't a writer during the late '60s and the early '70s, with the New Journalism and Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson and all those people.
Meghan Daum
#2. Terror - what Hunter Thompson calls "fear and loathing" - often arises from a pervasive sense of disestablishment; that things are in the unmaking. If that sense of unmaking is sudden and seems personal - if it hits you around the heart - then it lodges in the memory as a complete set.
Stephen King
#3. I knew Hunter Thompson since the '70s, and I loved him, but he would wear me out as I got older.
P. J. O'Rourke
#4. David Blum burned a lot of bridges. He burned people early in their careers. He took on the wrong people, though. He's not Hunter Thompson or Tom Wolfe, he's David Blum living in a cheap flat.
Rob Lowe
#5. Life as Hunter Thompson's mother was no weenie roast.
William McKeen
#6. I think it may have been Tom Wolfe (if it wasn't, my apologies, Tom, and my apologies to whoever it was) who said in print once, 'David Carradine lives the life that Hunter Thompson only writes about.'
David Carradine
#7. The proper bookmark for a Hunter Thompson book is a pair of brass knuckles.
Jonathan Heatt
#8. Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective Journalism
which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place.
Hunter S. Thompson
#9. Those who fail to learn from the brutal stompings visited on them in the past are doomed to be brutally stomped in the future.
Hunter S. Thompson
#10. Chicago - this vicious, stinking zoo, this mean-grinning, Mace-smelling boneyard of a city; an elegant rockpile monument to everything cruel and stupid and corrupt in the human spirit.
Hunter S. Thompson
#11. Say,' I said. "What brings you out here at this hour of the morning, for a thing like this?"
'The bus,' he said.
Hunter S. Thompson
#12. Sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whiskey and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind but falling in love and not getting arrested.
Hunter S. Thompson
#15. The trouble with Nixon is that he's a serious politics junkie. He's totally hooked and like any other junkie, he's a bummer to have around, especially as President.
Hunter S. Thompson
#16. One of them is knowing the difference between Morality and Wisdom. Morality is temporary, Wisdom is permanent ... Ho ho. Take that one to bed with you tonight.
Hunter S. Thompson
#17. And in fact the only way I can deal with this eerie situation at all is to make a conscious decision that I have already lived and finished the life I planned to live - and everything from now on will be A New Life, a different thing, a gig that ends tonight and starts tomorrow morning.
Hunter S. Thompson
#19. Hey, honkies!" my attorney screamed. "Goddamnit, I'm serious! I want to sell you some pure fuckin' smack!
Hunter S. Thompson
#20. There is no fool like a careless gambler who starts taking victory for granted.
Hunter S. Thompson
#21. One of the advantages of being dead, I guess, is that somebody else can edit all this.
Hunter S. Thompson
#22. By any accepted standard, I have had more than nine lives. I counted them up once, and there were 13 times I almost and maybe should have died.
Hunter S. Thompson
#23. Words are such a poor medium when you really want someone to feel something.
Hunter S. Thompson
#24. No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun - for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax - This won't hurt
Hunter S. Thompson
#25. There was only one road back to L.A. - U.S. Interstate 15. Just a flat-out high speed burn through Baker and Barstow and Berdoo. Then onto the Hollywood Freeway, and straight on into frantic oblivion. Safety. Obscurity.
Hunter S. Thompson
#26. You cheap honky faggots," he snarled. "Which one of you wants to get cut?
Hunter S. Thompson
#27. The brutal reality of politics would be probably intolerable without drugs.
Hunter S. Thompson
#28. I was thinking; my mind was running at top speed, scanning and sorting my options. They ranged all the way from Dumb and Dangerous to Crazy, Evil, and utterly wrong from the start.
Hunter S. Thompson
#29. All my life, my heart has sought a thing I cannot name.
Remembered line from a long-
forgotten poem
Hunter S. Thompson
#30. It's in my interest, in ours perhaps, or maybe the interests of the greater good, for me to smoke a joint, and calm down.
Hunter S. Thompson
#31. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.
Hunter S. Thompson
#33. I can't think in terms of journalism without thinking in terms of political ends. Unless there's been a reaction, there's been no journalism. It's cause and effect.
Hunter S. Thompson
#35. February is always a bad month for TV sports. Football is gone, basketball is plodding along in the annual midseason doldrums, and baseball is not even mentioned.
Hunter S. Thompson
#36. She was wearing the same clothes, but now she looked haggard and dirty. The delicate illusions that get us through life can only stand so much strain.
Hunter S. Thompson
#37. Bill Clinton does not inhale marijuana, right? You bet. Like I chew on LSD but I don't swallow it.'
Hunter S. Thompson
#39. Have an objective to give your bender a theme. For instance, stalking and killing a wild pig with a bowie knife.
Hunter S. Thompson
#40. The best thing about the Kentucky Derby is that it is only two minutes long. It is the quickest event in sports, except for Sumo-wrestling & Mike Tyson fights. Maybe Drag-racing is quicker, but I have never been attracted to it.
Hunter S. Thompson
#41. The reefer butt is called a 'roach' because it resembles a cockroach ... cockroach ... cockroach ...
Hunter S. Thompson
#42. There was no moon, but I could hear the surf a few yards in front of us. I spread my filthy cord coat on the sand for a pillow, then fell down and went to sleep.
Hunter S. Thompson
#45. All the blood is drained out of democracy - it dies - when only half the population votes.
Hunter S. Thompson
#47. 'Crazy' is a term of art; 'Insane' is a term of law. Remember that, and you will save yourself a lot of trouble.
Hunter S. Thompson
#48. The writer must be a participant in the scene ... like a film director who writes his own scripts, does his own camera work, and somehow manages to film himself in action, as the protagonist or at least the main character.
Hunter S. Thompson
#52. A man never stoops so low as when he rises to the challenge of politics.
Hunter S. Thompson
#54. I guess that's one of the things about growing up in the fifties - it never occurred to me that you wouldn't be at least as successful as your parents.
Hunter S. Thompson
#55. There is nothing more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge.
Hunter S. Thompson
#56. Duke is an ugly word in Kentucky. Nothing in the world compares to the joy of beating those hateful swine from Duke.
Hunter S. Thompson
#59. You forget where you are," he said. "What right do you have to come here and cause trouble, and then tell us to speak your language?
Hunter S. Thompson
#60. I was so far beyond simple fatigue that I was beginning to feel nicely adjusted to the idea of permanent hysteria.
Hunter S. Thompson
#62. There was absolutely no choice but to cut her adrift and hope her memory was fucked.
Hunter S. Thompson
#64. Avoid being seized by the police. The cops are not your friends. Don't tell them anything.
Hunter S. Thompson
#65. By disgracing and degrading the presidency of the United States, by fleeing the White House like a diseased cur, Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream.
Hunter S. Thompson
#66. I would feel real trapped in this life if I didn't know I could commit suicide at any time.
Hunter S. Thompson
#67. So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?
Hunter S. Thompson
#68. "Drugs" are not necessarily narcotics. The narcotic is one type of drug and coffee is a drug ... booze is a drug ... many drugs ... They're all around us.
Hunter S. Thompson
#69. A group photo of the top ten journalists in America on any given day would be a monument to human ugliness.
Hunter S. Thompson
#70. Cover a war in a place where you can't drink beer or talk to a woman? Hell no!
Hunter S. Thompson
#71. Las Vegas is a society of armed masturbators/gambling is the kicker here/sex is extra/weird trip for high rollers ... house-whores for winners, hand jobs for the bad luck crowd.
Hunter S. Thompson
#72. There was an awful suspicion in my mind that I'd finally gone over the hump, and the worst thing about it was that I didn't feel tragic at all, but only weary, and sort of comfortably detached.
Hunter S. Thompson
#73. We'd be fools not to ride this strange torpedo all the way out to the end.
Hunter S. Thompson
#74. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.
Hunter S. Thompson
#77. I never claimed to be anything more than a nice guy and an athlete.
Hunter S. Thompson
#78. And the whole Bush family, from Texas, should be boiled in poisoned oil.
Hunter S. Thompson
#79. I couldn't imagine, and I don't say this with any pride, but I really couldn't imagine writing without a desperate deadline.
Hunter S. Thompson
#80. Whatever else might be said about Nixon - and there is still serious doubt in my mind that he could pass for Human - he is a goddamn stone fanatic on every facet of pro football.
Hunter S. Thompson
#81. A week earlier I'd been locked into the idea that the Redskins would win easily
but when Nixon came out for them and George Allen began televising his prayer meetings I decided that any team with both God and Nixon on their side was fucked from start.
Hunter S. Thompson
#82. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right.
Hunter S. Thompson
#83. I'm bound to go to heaven because I've already served my time in hell.
Hunter S. Thompson
#84. I miss Nixon. Compared to these Nazis we have in the White House now, Richard Nixon was a flaming liberal.
Hunter S. Thompson
#86. To give advice to a man who asks what to do with his life implies something very close to egomania. To presume to point a man to the right and ultimate goal - to point with a trembling finger in the RIGHT direction is something only a fool would take upon himself.
Hunter S. Thompson
#87. I have always loved marijuana. It has been a source of joy and comfort to me for many years. And I still think of it as a basic staple of life, along with beer and ice and grapefruits - and millions of Americans agree with me.
Hunter S. Thompson
#88. I noticed at once that Depp had a dangerously energized intelligence ... He was a suave little brute, but he had a wicked sense of humor and a rare instinct for escalation.
Hunter S. Thompson
#89. Quacks are a part of our culture, and we all fall prey to them. Who among us can say, for sure, that even our own personal physicians are honest and competent?
Hunter S. Thompson
#91. The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.
Hunter S. Thompson
#92. Richard Nixon looks like a flaming liberal today, compared to a golem like George Bush. Indeed. Where is Richard Nixon now that we finally need him?
Hunter S. Thompson
#93. Did you see Bush on TV, trying to debate? Jesus, he talked like a donkey with no brains at all ... It was pitiful ... I almost felt sorry for him, until I heard someone call him 'Mr. President,' and then I felt ashamed.
Hunter S. Thompson
#97. They say that "he who flies highest, falls farthest" - and who am I to argue? But we can't forget that "he who doesn't flap his wings, never flies at all.
Hunter S. Thompson
#98. But after a while you learn to cope with things like seeing your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth. Most acid fanciers can handle this sort of thing.
Hunter S. Thompson
#99. They look like caricatures of used-car dealers from Dallas. But they're real. And, sweet Jesus, there are a hell of a lot of them - still
Hunter S. Thompson
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