Top 500 Hunter S. Thompson Quotes (2026 Update)
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201. “Who are these people? These faces! Where do they come from? They look like caricatures of used-car dealers from Dallas. But they’re real. And, sweet Jesus, there are a hell of a lot of them – still screaming around these desert-city crap tables at four-thirty on a Sunday morning. Still humping the American Dream, that vision of the Big Winner somehow emerging from the last-minute pre-dawn chaos of a stale Vegas casino.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

202. “It was like a scene from the final hours of the Roman Empire: Everywhere you looked, some prominent politician was degrading himself in public.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

203. “This was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary’s trip. He crashed around America selling “conciousness expansion” without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him too seriously. After West Point and the Priesthood, LSD must have seemed entirely logical to him... but there is not much satisfaction in knowing that he blew it very badly for himself, because he took too many others down with him.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

204. “Writing is the flip side of sex – it’s good only when it’s over.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

205. “They look like caricatures of used-car dealers from Dallas. But they’re real. And, sweet Jesus, there are a hell of a lot of them – still.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

206. “Truth is weirder than any fiction I’ve seen.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

207. “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.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

208. “These are bad times for people who like to sit outside the library at dawn on a rainy morning and get ripped to the tits on crank and powerful music.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

209. “There is not much mental distance between a feeling of having been screwed and the ethic of total retaliation, or at least the kind of random revenge that comes with outraging the public decency.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

210. “I can’t think in terms of journalism without thinking in terms of political ends. Unless there’s been a reaction, there’s been no journalism. It’s cause and effect.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

211. “I haven’t found a drug yet that can get you anywhere near as high as sitting at a desk writing.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

212. “Of all the men that have run for president in the twentieth century, only George McGovern truly understood what a monument America could be to the human race.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

213. “I have always loved marijuana. It has been a source of joy and comfort to me for many years. And I still think of it as a basic staple of life, along with beer and ice and grapefruits – and millions of Americans agree with me.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

214. “I didn’t know Johnny Depp could act until he played me.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

215. “Fear? I know not fear. There are only moments of confusion.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

216. “The mind of America is seized by a fatal dry rot – and it’s only a question of time before all that the mind controls will run amuck in a frenzy of stupid, impotent fear.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

217. “Without gambling, I would not exist.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

218. “There’s no point in getting into politics at all unless you plan to lash things around.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

219. “He had come so far from himself that I don’t think he knew who he was anymore.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

220. “No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

221. “It was dangerous lunacy, but it was also the kind of thing a real connoisseur of edge-work could make an argument for.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

222. “The Jews don’t beleive in Jesus! Why should I?! WHOOOEEEE!!”

— Hunter S. Thompson

223. “The line between madness and masochism was already hazy;.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

224. “Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of ‘the rat race’ is not yet final.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

225. “How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?”

— Hunter S. Thompson

226. “A man never stoops so low as when he rises to the challenge of politics.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

227. “In a nervous society where a man’s image is frequently more important than his reality, the only people who can afford to advertise their drug menus are those with nothing to lose.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

228. “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.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

229. “This is one of the hallmarks of Vegas hospitality. The only bedrock rule is Don’t Burn the Locals. Beyond that, nobody cares. They would rather not know. If Charlie Manson checked into the Sahara tomorrow morning, nobody would hassle him as long as he tipped big.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

230. “He wandered into the Newsroom and asked for a job the same way he’d walk into a barbershop and ask for a haircut, and with no more idea of being turned down.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

231. “But instead of losing quietly, one by one, they have banded together with a mindless kind of loyalty and moved outside the framework, for good or ill. They may not have an answer, but at least they are still on their feet.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

232. “Words are such a poor medium when you really want someone to feel something.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

233. “Don’t have sex in the lobby – it’s usually awkward.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

234. “Platitudes are safe, because they’re easy to wink at, but truth is something else again.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

235. “There is probably some long-standing “rule” among writers, journalists, and other word-mongers that says: “When you start stealing from your own work you’re in bad trouble.” And it may be true.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

236. “Hey, honkies!” my attorney screamed. “Goddamnit, I’m serious! I want to sell you some pure fuckin’ smack!”

— Hunter S. Thompson

237. “The whole framework of the presidency is getting out of hand. It’s come to the point where you almost can’t run unless you can cause people to salivate and whip on each other with big sticks. You almost have to be a rock star to get the kind of fever you need to survive in American politics.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

238. “There’s also a down side.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

239. “No, we are getting ahead of our story, and only an jackass would do that.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

240. “Quacks are a part of our culture, and we all fall prey to them. Who among us can say, for sure, that even our own personal physicians are honest and competent?”

— Hunter S. Thompson

241. “When Nixon went into New Hampshire, he was viewed by the pros as just another of these stubborn, right-wing waterheads with nothing better to do.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

242. “Fiction is based on reality unless you’re a fairytale artist.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

243. “I was thinking; my mind was running at top speed, scanning and sorting my options. They ranged all the way from Dumb and Dangerous to Crazy, Evil, and utterly wrong from the start.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

244. “What do you want? Where’s the goddamn ice I ordered? Where’s the booze? There’s a war on, man! People are being killed!”

— Hunter S. Thompson

245. “Familiarity seems to breed contempt.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

246. “We have bigger things to brood on and enormous reasons for wallowing in terminal craziness until we finally hit bottom.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

247. “666 Pennsylvania Ave. “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.” – Revelation 13:18.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

248. “If we start electing presidents on the basis of their sexual purity, some real monsters will get into the White House.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

249. “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

250. “It’s in my interest, in ours perhaps, or maybe the interests of the greater good, for me to smoke a joint, and calm down.”

— Hunter S. Thompson