Hunter S. Thompson Quotes
Today is a day of mourning here at the halcyon fire dog lake. I will be adding more quotes to the post as I find them and updating, so if you want more keep checking back. But today we pay tribute to the good Doctor in his own words:
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Updated 21:30 PST:
Events of the past two years have virtually decreed that I shall wrestle with the literary muse for the rest of my days. And so, having tasted the poverty of one end of the scale, I have no choice but to direct my energies toward the acquisiton of fame and fortune. Frankly, I have no taste for either poverty or honest labor, so writing is the only recourse left for me." To Mr. Arch Gerhart, January 29, 1958)
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Get out of control, but appear under control. It's not bad to alarm other people, though - it's good for them. Advice on 'Adventure,' in Men's Journal
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Gonzo journalism is a style of reporting based on William Faulkner's idea that the best fiction is far more true than any kind of journalism - and the best journalists have always known this. Which is not to say that fiction is necessarily 'more true' than journalism - or vice versa - but that both 'fiction' and 'journalism' are artificial categories; and that both forms, at their best, are only two different means to the same end.
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Groveling is wrong for the soul, like grappling with whores in a drugstore.
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Updated 18:22 PST:
We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world--a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us...No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid rich kids like George Bush?
They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us--they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis.
And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them
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"It is hard to ignore the prima facie dumbness that got us bogged down in this nasty war in the first place. This is not going to be like Daddy's War, old sport. He actually won, and he still got run out of the White House nine months later.. . The whole thing sucks. It was wrong from the start, and it is getting wronger by the hour. Love in a Time of War, March 31, 2003
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Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President? -- Fear and Loathing On the Campaign Trail, 1973
Updated 12:12 PST:
We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear -- fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts, or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer. -- Extreme Behavior in Aspen, Feb. 3, 2003
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Why are we seeing George Bush on TV every two hours for nine or ten days at a time, like some kind of mutated Mr. Rogers clone? Something is dangerously wrong in any country where a monumentally-Failed backwoods politician can scare our national TV networks so totally that they will give him anything he wants. -- The Bush League, Sept. 9, 2003
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I have never had much faith in our embattled child President's decision-making powers ... I know that is not what you want to hear/read at this time, especially if you happen to be serving in the doomsday mess that is currently the U.S. Army.
I take no pleasure in being Right in my dark predictions about the fate of our military intervention in the heart of the Muslim world. It is immensely depressing to me. Nobody likes to be betting against the Home team." -- Fast and Furious, Oct. 14, 2003
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In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.
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Being shot out of a cannon is always better than being squeezed through a tube.
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Objective journalism is one of the main reasons American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long.
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We'd be fools not to ride this strange torpedo to the end.
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In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upward mobile.
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If there is, in fact, a Heaven and a Hell, all we know for sure is that Hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix...
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We are living in dangerously weird times now. Smart people just shrug and admit they're dazed and confused. The only ones left with any confidence at all are the New Dumb. It is the beginning of the end of our world as we knew it. Doom is the operative ethic.
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America... just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable
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The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.
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The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.
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When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
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For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampeled.
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Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
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History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of ''history'' it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time -- and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
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A word to the wise is infuriating.
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Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men's reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of ''the rat race'' is not yet final.
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Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas ... with the music at top volume and at least a pint of ether.
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Rest in peace, Doc.
posted by Jane Hamsher @ 2/21/2005 12:40:00 AM
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