Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author, and the founder of the gonzo journalism movement. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, to a middle-class family, Thompson had a turbulent youth after the death of his father left the family in poverty. Thompson became internationally known with the publication of Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (1967). For his research on the book he had spent a year living and riding with the Angels, experiencing their lives and hearing their stories first-hand.
I Had A Soft-spot In My Heart For Ronald Reagan, If Only Because He Was A Sportswriter In His Youth.
The Mind Of America Is Seized By A Fatal Dry Rot - And It's Only A Question Of Time Before All That The Mind Controls Will Run Amuck In A Frenzy Of Stupid, Impotent Fear.
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.
Without Gambling, I Would Not Exist.
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.
Nixon Was So Crooked That He Needed Servants To Help Him Screw His Pants On Every Morning.
Nixon Was A Bad Loser. He Hated Losing Worse Than Death, And That Is Why I Enjoyed Him. We Were Both Football Fans, Both Addicts; And On Some Days, Nothing Else Mattered.
There Might Be Some Serious Fun In Politics.
I Was 22 When Jfk Was Murdered, And I Will Never Recover From It... Never.
I've Already Become A Mastodon In Print - I Don't See A Consciousness For My Kind Of Journalism.
I Am A Generous Man, By Nature, And Far More Trusting Than I Should Be. Indeed. The Real World Is Risky Territory For People With Generosity Of Spirit. Beware.
Some May Never Live, But The Crazy Never Die.
If Sunday Is The Lord's Day, Then Saturday Belongs To The Devil. It Is The Only Night Of The Week When He Gives Out Free Passes To The Late Show At The Too Much Fun Club.
I Hate To Advocate Drugs, Alcohol, Violence, Or Insanity To Anyone, But They've Always Worked For Me.
I Have Always Hated Bowling, And I Don't Mind Admitting It.
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.
I Have Always Loved Blizzards, If Only Because Of The Driving Experience - Which Is Definitely An Acquired Taste.
I Don't Think That My Kind Of Journalism Has Ever Been Universally Popular. It's Lonely Out Here.
I Have Long Understood That Losing Always Comes With The Territory When You Wander Into The Gambling Business, Just As Getting Crippled For Life Is An Acceptable Risk In The Linebacker Business. They Both Are Extremely Violent Sports, And Pain Is Part Of The Bargain. Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride.
No Man Is So Foolish But He May Sometimes Give Another Good Counsel, And No Man So Wise That He May Not Easily Err If He Takes No Other Counsel Than His Own. He That Is Taught Only By Himself Has A Fool For A Master.
Yes Sir, I Am A Tortured Man For All Seasons, As They Say, And I Have Powerful Friends In High Places. Birds Sing Where I Walk, And Children Smile When They See Me Coming.
You Can Turn Your Back On A Person, But Never Turn Your Back On A Drug, Especially When Its Waving A Razor Sharp Hunting Knife In Your Eye.
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?
Justice Is Expensive In America. There Are No Free Passes... You Might Want To Remember This, The Next Time You Get Careless And Blow Off A Few Parking Tickets. They Will Come Back To Haunt You The Next Time You See A Cop Car In Your Rear-view Mirror.
Going To Trial With A Lawyer Who Considers Your Whole Life-style A Crime In Progress Is Not A Happy Prospect.
For Every Moment Of Triumph, For Every Instance Of Beauty, Many Souls Must Be Trampled.
If I'd Written All The Truth I Knew For The Past Ten Years, About 600 People - Including Me - Would Be Rotting In Prison Cells From Rio To Seattle Today. Absolute Truth Is A Very Rare And Dangerous Commodity In The Context Of Professional Journalism.
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.
The World Is Still A Weird Place, Despite My Efforts To Make Clear And Perfect Sense Of It.
Of All The Men That Have Run For President In The Twentieth Century, Only George Mcgovern Truly Understood What A Monument America Could Be To The Human Race.
Freedom Is Something That Dies Unless It's Used.
Paranoia Is Just Another Word For Ignorance.
Yesterday's Weirdness Is Tomorrow's Reason Why.
Objective Journalism Is One Of The Main Reasons That American Politics Has Been Allowed To Be So Corrupt For So Long.
The Only Difference Between The Sane And The Insane Is That The Sane Have The Power To Lock Up The Insane.
Jack Kerouac Influenced Me Quite A Bit As A Writer... In The Arab Sense That The Enemy Of My Enemy Was My Friend.
Richard Nixon Was An Evil Man - Evil In A Way That Only Those Who Believe In The Physical Reality Of The Devil Can Understand It. He Was Utterly Without Ethics Or Morals Or Any Bedrock Sense Of Decency.
The Raiders Of Old Were Vicious And Crazy And Cruel. Hanging Around Their Locker Room Was Like Hanging Around The Weight Room At Folsom Prison.
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.
As Long As I'm Learning Something, I Figure I'm Ok - It's A Decent Day.
I Believe The Republicans Have Never Thought That Democracy Was Anything But A Tribal Myth.
As Far As I'm Concerned, It's A Damned Shame That A Field As Potentially Dynamic And Vital As Journalism Should Be Overrun With Dullards, Bums, And Hacks, Hag-ridden With Myopia, Apathy, And Complacence, And Generally Stuck In A Bog Of Stagnant Mediocrity.
Rush Limbaugh Is A Lame Professional Swine, And He Makes A Good Living At It. He Is Like A Hired Geek In Some Traveling Backwoods Carnival - The Freaks Who Bite The Heads Off Chickens - But Limbaugh Is A Modernized Geek Who Thinks He Can Bite The Heads Off Of People.
'Crazy' Is A Term Of Art; 'Insane' Is A Term Of Law. Remember That, And You Will Save Yourself A Lot Of Trouble.
There Is No Fool Like A Careless Gambler Who Starts Taking Victory For Granted.
Gambling Can Turn Into A Dangerous Two-way Street When You Least Expect It. Weird Things Happen Suddenly, And Your Life Can Go All To Pieces.
Victory Is A Fleeting Thing In The Gambling Business. Today's Winners Are Tomorrow's Blinking Toads, Dumb Beasts With No Hope.
Football Fans Share A Universal Language That Cuts Across Many Cultures And Many Personality Types. A Serious Football Fan Is Never Alone. We Are Legion, And Football Is Often The Only Thing We Have In Common.
There Are Many Harsh Lessons To Be Learned From The Gambling Experience, But The Harshest One Of All Is The Difference Between Having Fun And Being Smart.
One Thing I Have Learned In My Painful Career As A Gambler Is That Bragging When You Get Lucky And Win A Few Games Will Plunge You Into Gloom And Unacceptable Beatings Very Soon. It Happens Every Time.