Hunter S. Thompson Quotes

337 Sourced Quotes

Which is not really a hell of a lot to ask, Lord, because the final incredible truth is that I am not guilty. All I did was take your gibberish seriously... and you see where it got me? My primitive Christian instincts have made me a criminal.

Hunter S. Thompson
Most of my stuff is just a series of false leads. I'll approach a story as a subject and then make a whole bunch of different runs at the lead. They're all good writing but they don't connect. So I end up having to string leads together.

Hunter S. Thompson
But I am in the gambling business, for good or ill; it is the business I have chosen, and the only governing rule that we all recognize is: always sit close to an exit and never trust a man who doesn't sweat.

Hunter S. Thompson
There's a terrible danger in voting for the lesser of two evils because the parties can set it up that way.

Hunter S. Thompson
I think George Washington owned guns. I've never seen any contradiction with that.

Hunter S. Thompson
"Perceive" is the word that became in the '72 campaign what "charisma" was for the 1960, '64 and even the '68 campaigns. "Perceive" is the new key word. When you say perceive you imply the difference between what the candidate is and the way the public or the voters see him.

Hunter S. Thompson
There is nothing Modern about doing dumb things for dumb reasons.

Hunter S. Thompson
I've always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it's a bit like f***ing — which is fun only for amateurs. Old whores don't do much giggling.

Hunter S. Thompson
I still feel needles in my back when I think about all the horrible disasters that would have befallen me if I had permanently moved to San Francisco and rented a big house, joined the company dole, become national-affairs editor for some upstart magazine—that was the plan around 1967. But that would have meant going to work on a regular basis, like nine to five, with an office—I had to pull out.

Hunter S. Thompson
There are always risks in challenging excessive police power, but the risks of not challenging it are more dangerous, even fatal.

Hunter S. Thompson
Words are such a poor medium when you really want someone to feel something.

Hunter S. Thompson
Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life.

Hunter S. Thompson
As I see it then, the formula runs something like this: a man must choose a path which will let his ABILITIES function at maximum efficiency toward the gratification of his DESIRES.

Hunter S. Thompson
No one HAS to do something he doesn't want to do for the rest of his life. But then again, if that's what you wind up doing, by all means convince yourself that you HAD to do it. You'll have lots of company.

Hunter S. Thompson
That's where Time magazine lives... way out there on the puzzled, masturbating edge, peering through the keyhole and selling what they see to the big wide world of chamber of commerce voyeurs who support the public prints.

Hunter S. Thompson
In some circles, the Mint 400 is a far, far better thing than the Superbowl, the Kentucky Derby, and the lower Oakland roller derby finals all rolled into one. This race attracts a very special breed.

Hunter S. Thompson
He seemed surprised. "You found a knife that can cut off an atom?" he said. "In this town?" I nodded. "We're sitting on the main nerve right now," I said.

Hunter S. Thompson
One of the few ways I can almost be certain I'll understand something is by sitting down and writing about it. Because by forcing yourself to write about it and putting it down in words, you can't avoid having your say on the subject. You might be wrong, but you have to think about it very intensely to write about it.

Hunter S. Thompson
When you push a car off a cliff and blow it up, be sure to roll the windows down to avoid shrapnel. Also, strip the license plate so you're not billed for the cleanup.

Hunter S. Thompson
To give advice to a man who asks what to do with his life implies something very close to egomania. To presume to point a man to the right and ultimate goal - to point with a trembling finger in the RIGHT direction is something only a fool would take upon himself.

Hunter S. Thompson
If there is in fact, a heaven and a hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix.

Hunter S. Thompson
Bill Clinton does not inhale marijuana, right? You bet. Like I chew on LSD but I don't swallow it.'

Hunter S. Thompson
I am a writer, a professional journalist with serious credentials in Crime, Craziness, and Politics. I have mingled with dangerous criminals and attended many trials... from Hell's Angels, Black Panthers and Chicano street fighters to Roxanne Pulitzer and even Richard Nixon, back in the good old days before he was run out of the White House for fraud, perjury, graft, and criminal negligence.

Hunter S. Thompson
I believe that the major operating ethic in American society right now, the most universal want and need is to be on TV. I've been on TV. I could be on TV all the time if I wanted to. But most people will never get on TV. It has to be a real breakthrough for them. And trouble is, people will do almost anything to get on it. You know, confess to crimes they haven't committed. You don't exist unless you're on TV. Yeah, it's a validation process.

Hunter S. Thompson
Children are like TV sets. When they start acting weird, whack them across the head with a big rubber basketball shoe.

Hunter S. Thompson
By the time I got to high school I knew what I was gonna do. Mainly because I looked around and saw there wasn't much else I was able to do. I was a criminal. I was a juvenile delinquent.

Hunter S. Thompson
There is a progression of understanding vis-à-vis pro football that varies drastically with the factor of distance --physical, emotional, intellectual and every other way... Which is exactly the way it should be...

Hunter S. Thompson
I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.

Hunter S. Thompson
I got tired and embarrassed by the constant poverty of those years. I told Doug [ Brinkley] this is really going to be a horrible downer of a book [The Proud Highway] if all it's going to be is about being broke. I didn't like being reminded of desperation at all times.

Hunter S. Thompson
Every GOP administration since 1952 has let the Military-Industrial Complex loot the Treasury and plunge the nation into debt on the excuse of a wartime economic emergency.

Hunter S. Thompson