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.
Hunter S. ThompsonRead
I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I felt that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actor, kidding ourselves on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between those two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote explores the conflict between hope and despair in life's journey.
Hunter S. Thompson articulates a deep inner conflict between optimism and pessimism. He acknowledges the progress made by some, reflecting a 'vagrant optimism,' yet he simultaneously observes a sense of futility in the human experience, suggesting that life's journey can feel like an endless and nonsensical struggle. This tension between idealism and a looming sense of doom serves as a driving force in his life, highlighting the complexity of human emotions in the face of reality.
Themes
OptimismPessimismIdealismDespairLife'S Journey
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a discussion on the duality of human experience at a mental health seminar.
More from Hunter S. Thompson
All quotes →As 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.
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Fiction is a bridge to the truth that journalism can't reach.
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There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge.
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Objective journalism is one of the main reasons that American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long.
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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.
Hunter S. ThompsonRead
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