Some lines I love from Hunter S. Thompson, a great and often overlooked writer, some from his books and some from various other things he wrote.
From The Rum Diary:
And the sad notes floated out to the patio and hung in the trees like birds too tired to fly.
The scene I had just witnessed brought back a lot of memories – not of things I have done but of things I have failed to do, wasted hours and frustrated moments and opportunities forever lost because time had eaten so much of my life and I would never get it back.
She was wearing the same clothes, but now she looked haggard and dirty. The delicate illusions that get us through life can only stand so much strain.
From Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:
Take it from me, there's nothing like a job well done. Except the quiet enveloping darkness at the bottom of a bottle of Jim Beam after a job done any way at all.
There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high-powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.
Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits -- a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage.
From Kingdom of Fear:
Weird behavior is natural in smart children, like curiosity is to a kitten.
It was one of those fine little love stories that can make you smile in your sleep at night.
Other lines of his I've come across elsewhere:
I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots.
I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.
The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously.
Sex without love is as hollow and ridiculous as love without sex.
We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and -- in spite of True Romance magazines -- we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely -- at least, not all the time -- but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.
It was obvious that he was a man who marched through life to the rhythms of some drum I would never hear.
Freedom is something that dies unless it's used.
I haven't found a drug yet that can get you anywhere near as high as sitting at a desk writing, trying to imagine a story...
I am a natural slave to passion: the balance between my brain and my soul and my body is as wild and delicate as the skin of a Ming vase.
His suicide note:
No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won't hurt.
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"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man." Samuel Johnson
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A conversation I wrote down from a few years ago with my elderly neighbour while I was helping her with some gardening. It seemed funny to me as she is a sweet 82 year old woman who doesn't normally use bad language.
Suzy: So you don't need to hurry back or anything?
Me: Nah, Mum and Dad went to chapel and they won't be back for a while, I'll have plenty to time to finish this.
Suzy: You never bother with going to the chapel then?
Me: Nope, never any more...
Suzy: Good for you son, they're a bunch of fuckin' hypocrites the lot of them.
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(In a dentist's surgery) "This room looks like that one on the space ship where I got probed." Brittany in an episode of Glee
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