Quotes on Gonzo

There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge.

Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairy-tale artist, you have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you're writing about before you alter it.

In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.

Buy the ticket, take the ride.

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.

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.

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

At the top of the mountain we are all snow leopards.

The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. And I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. Probably at the next gas station.

Just sick enough to be totally confident

Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairytale artist.

It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat sh** and die.

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.

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?

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

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.

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!

Going to trial with a lawyer who considers your whole life-style a Crime in Progress is not a happy prospect.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

Most people who deal in words don't have much faith in them and I am no exception.

Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.