Hunter S. Thompson

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.

There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death?

I am not a yachting person, by nature, but I have just enough experience on the sea under sail to feel a certain nostalgia for it when I see a big white racing yacht heeled over at cruising speed on the ocean, and I can still tie a mean bowline knot on just about anything in less than 10 seconds.

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.

I never knew where I was going, but I ripped the tits off of everything that got in my way. By the time they figured me out, it was too late.

There was no time for scholarly details, and, besides, I have always believed that a man can fairly be judged by the standards and taste of his choices in matters of high-level plagiarism.

The only thing wrong with the NBA - or any other professional sport, for that matter - is a wild epidemic of Dumbness and overweening Greed. There is no Mystery about it, and no need to change any rules.

A cap of good acid costs $5, and for that you can hear the Universal Symphony, with God singing solo and the Holy Ghost on drums.

1) Never trust a cop in a raincoat. 2) Beware of enthusiasm and of love, both are temporary and quick to sway. 3) If asked if you care about the world's problems, look deep into the eyes of he who asks, he will never ask you again. 4) Never give your real name. 5) If ever asked to look at yourself, don't look. 6) Never do anything the person standing in front of you can't understand. 7) Never create anything, it will be misinterpreted, it will chain you and follow you for the rest of your life.

Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously.

Anything that gets your blood racing is probably worth doing.

Sex without love is as hollow and ridiculous as love without sex.

Freedom is something that dies unless it's used.

If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up.

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.

I hate pain, despite my ability to tolerate it beyond all known parameters, which is not necessarily a good thing.

I don't mean to say that I'm about to state my credo here on this page, but merely to affirm, sincerely for the first time in my life, my belief in man as an individual and independent entity. Certainly not independence in the everyday sense of the word, but pertaining to a freedom and mobility of thought that few people are able - or even have the courage - to achieve.

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.

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.

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!

Too weird to live, and too rare to die.