Explore Quotes by Hunter S. Thompson

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.

Jesus man! You don't look for acid! Acid finds you when it thinks you're ready.

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

There is nothing worse than a man in the throws of an ether bender.

Most of my friends are into strange things I don't really understand - and with a few shameful exceptions I wish them all well. Who am I, after all, to tell some friend he shouldn't change his name to Oliver High, get rid of his family, and join a Satanism cult in Seattle? Or to argue with another friend who wants to buy a single-shot Remington Fireball so he can go out and shoot cops from a safe distance?

The possibility of physical and mental collapse is very real now... but collapse is out of the question; as a solution or even a cheap alternative, it is unacceptable. No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind.

Things are no longer what they seem to be. My telephones are haunted, and animals whisper at me from unseen places.

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 understands at the time--and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

Just the other day the AP wire had a story about a man from Arkansas who entered some kind of contest and won a two-week vacation--all expenses paid--wherever he wanted to go. Any place in the world: Mongolia, Easter Island, the Turkish Riviera . . . but his choice was Salt Lake City, and that's where he went. Is this man a registered voter? Has he come to grips with the issues? Has he bathed in the blood of the lamb?

The importance of Liking Yourself is a notion that fell heavily out of favor during the coptic, anti-ego frenzy of the Acid Era--but nobody guessed back then that the experiment might churn up this kind of hangover: a whole subculture of frightened illiterates with no faith in anything.

I’m a word freak. I like words. I’ve always compared writing to music. That’s the way I feel about good paragraphs. When it really works, it’s like music.

It was a maddening image and the only way to whip it was to hang on until dusk and banish the ghosts with rum.

You can't hoard fun. It has no shelf life.

There is something fresh and crisp about the first hours of a Caribbean day, a happy anticipation that something is about to happen, maybe just up the street or around the next corner.

A little bit of this town goes a very long way. After five days in Vegas you feel like you've been here for five years.

I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes.

Hit him again, Jack! He's crazy!

In the meantime, I would drink, rest, and ponder the meaning of this mob.

The waitress had the appearance of a very old hooker who had finally found her place in life

I would feel real trapped in this life if I didn't know I could commit suicide at any time.

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