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.
My life has been the polar opposite of safe, but I am proud of it and so is my son, and that is good enough for me. I would do it all over again without changing the beat, although I have never recommended it to others. That would be cruel and irresponsible and wrong, I think, and I am none of those things.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects pride in a life lived boldly, despite its risks, emphasizing personal fulfillment over conventional safety.
Hunter S. Thompson expresses a deep appreciation for his unconventional and risky life choices. He acknowledges that while his path has been anything but safe, the pride and validation he feels from both his life and his relationship with his son make it worthwhile. He recognizes the gravity of his experiences and advises others against following a similar reckless course, showing a sense of responsibility and self-awareness about the impact of one's life choices on others.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be shared at a graduation ceremony to inspire graduates to embrace life's challenges.
More from Hunter S. Thompson
All quotes βAs things stand now, I am going to be a writer. I'm not sure that I'm going to be a good one or even a self-supporting one, but until the dark thumb of fate presses me to the dust and says 'you are nothing', I will be a writer.
Fiction is a bridge to the truth that journalism can't reach.
There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge.
Objective journalism is one of the main reasons that American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long.
When you write for a living and you can't do anything else, you know that sooner or later that the deadline is going to come screaming down on you like a goddamn banshee. There's no avoiding it...So one day you just don't appear at the El Adobe bar anymore; you shut the door, paint the windows black, rent an electric typewriter and become the monster you always were - the writer.
Similar quotes
No memory of having starred atones for later disregard, or keeps the end from being hard.
A life lived without forgiveness is a prison.
Life cannot be cut off quickly. One cannot be dead until the things he changed are dead. His effect is the only evidence of his life. While there remains even a plaintive memory, a person cannot be cut off, dead. And he thought, βItβs a long slow process for a human to die. We kill a cow, and it is dead as soon as the meat is eaten, but a manβs life dies as a commotion in a still pool dies, in little waves, spreading and growing back toward stillness.
I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others--young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.
It is that unoccupied space which makes a room habitable, as it is our leisure hours which make life endurable.
For what endless years this life will have to go on! He felt, with a kind of horror, his own strong youth and the bounding blood in his veins.