Top 518 Quotes & Sayings by Hunter S. Thompson - Page 3

Never fire a warning shot. It is a waste of ammunition.

Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life.

All political power comes from the barrel of either guns, pussy, or opium pipes, and people seem to like it that way.

It is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it.

Those who fail to learn from the brutal stompings visited on them in the past are doomed to be brutally stomped in the future.

I damn well intend to keep on living the way I think I should.

There are always risks in challenging excessive police power, but the risks of not challenging it are more dangerous, even fatal.

My greatest talent is in my ability to choose good friends. It's about as important as things get.

Words are such a poor medium when you really want someone to feel something.

No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well...maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.

There is no story unless you've written it.

In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone.

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.

In Hong Kong, Dallas, or at home —and regardless of whether or not I have been to bed — breakfast is a personal ritual that can only be properly observed alone, and in a spirit of genuine excess. The food factor should always be massive: four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crepes, a half pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef hash with diced chilies , a Spanish omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random seasoning, and something like a slice of Key lime pie, two margaritas, and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert.

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.

Coming of age in a fascist police state will not be a barrel of fun for anybody, much less for people like me, who are not inclined to suffer Nazis gladly and feel only contempt for the cowardly flag-suckers who would gladly give up their outdated freedom to live for the mess of pottage they have been conned into believing will be freedom from fear.

I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright... Or maybe "stupid" is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I.

Freedom, Truth, Honour ? you could rattle off a hundred such words and behind every one of them would gather a thousand punks, pompous little farts, waving the banner with one hand and reaching under the table with the other.

Maybe there is no Heaven. Or maybe this is all pure gibberish - a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow - to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested... Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll.

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.

A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.

Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.

I miss Nixon. Compared to these Nazis we have in the White House now, Richard Nixon was a flaming liberal.

Anything that gets your blood racing is probably worth doing.

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.

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".

Never turn your back on fear. It should always be in front of you, like a thing that might have to be killed.

He had that rare weird electricity about him - that extremely wild and heavy presence that you only see in a person who has abandoned all hope of ever behaving normally.

I drink much less than most people think, and I think much more than most people would believe. I am quite sincere about some of the things which people take very lightly, and almost insultingly unconcerned about some of the things which people take most seriously. In short, I am basically antisocial: certainly not to an alarming degree , but just more so than I appear to be.

You won't find reasonable men on the tops of tall mountains.

There is an ancient Celtic axiom that says 'Good people drink good beer.' Which is true, then as now. Just look around you in any public barroom and you will quickly see: Bad people drink bad beer. Think about it.

Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life.

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.

Fear is a healthy instinct, not a sign of weakness. It is a natural self-defense mechanism that is common to felines, wolves, hyenas, and most humans. Even fruit bats know fear, and I salute them for it. If you think the world is weird now, imagine how weird it would be if wild beasts had no fear.

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.

Love plans for tomorrow and loneliness thinks of yesterday.

Every GOP administration since 1952 has let the Military-Industrial Complex loot the Treasury and plunge the nation into debt on the excuse of a wartime economic emergency.

The pleasure is in the path, the search for something good.

Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.

I will fight for your right to be weird- just as I know you will fight for mine.

Call on God, but row away from the rocks.

The slow-rising central horror of "Watergate" is not that it might grind down to the reluctant impeachment of a vengeful thug of a president whose entire political career has been a monument to the same kind of cheap shots and treachery he finally got nailed for, but that we might somehow fail to learn something from it.

Walk tall, kick ass, learn to speak Arabic, love music and never forget you come from a long line of truth seekers, lovers and warriors.

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. The others-the living-are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later. But the edge is still Out there.

With the truth so dull and depressing, the only working alternative is wild bursts of madness and filigree.

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?

There’s a lot of things wrong with this country, but one of the few things still right with it is that a man can steer clear of the organized bullshit if he really wants to. It’s a goddamned luxury, and if I were you, I’d take advantage of it while you can.

It was like falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool full of mermaids.

As your attorney, it is my duty to inform you that it is not important that you understand what I'm doing or why you're paying me so much money. What's important is that you continue to do so.

Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards, to absinthe and good-hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives... and to the "good life", whatever it is and wherever it happens to be.

The real power in America is held by a fast-emerging new Oligarchy of pimps and preachers who see no need for Democracy or fairness or even trees, except maybe the ones in their own yards, and they don't mind admitting it.

I was never trying, necessarily, to be an outlaw. It was just the place in which I found myself.

In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.

Liberalism itself has failed, and for a pretty good reason. It has been too often compromised by the people who represented it.

On some days you get what you want, and on others, you get what you need.

We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws.

A sense of humor is the main measure of sanity.

I felt a tremendous distance between myself and everything real.

Graffiti is beautiful; like a brick in the face of a cop.

It was one of those fine little love stories that can make you smile in your sleep at night.