Quotes from The Rum Diary

“I was not proud of what I had learned but I never doubted that it was worth knowing.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“Like most others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow 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 shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“It gave me a strange feeling, and the rest of that night I didn’t say much, but merely sat there and drank, trying to decide if I was getting older and wiser, or just plain old.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“Happy," I muttered, trying to pin the word down. But it is one of those words, like Love, that I have never quite understood. Most people who deal in words don’t have much faith in them and I am no exception – especially the big ones like Happy and Love and Honest and Strong. They are too elusive and far to relative when you compare them to sharp, mean little words like Punk and Cheap and Phony. I feel at home with these, because they’re scrawny and easy to pin, but the big ones are tough and it takes either a priest or a fool to use them with any confidence.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“There was an awful suspicion in my mind that I'd finally gone over the hump, and the worst thing about it was that I didn't feel tragic at all, but only weary, and sort of comfortably detached.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“I felt a tremendous distance between myself and everything real.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“The scene I had just witnessed (a couple making love in the ocean) brought back a lot of memories – not of things I had done but of things I had 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. I envied Yeoman and felt sorry for myself at the same time, because I had seen him in a moment that made all my happiness seem dull.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“and the sad notes floated out to the
patio and hung in the trees like birds too tired to fly”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“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.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“sounds of life and movement, people getting ready and people giving up, the sound of hope and the sound of hanging on, and behind them all, the quiet, deadly ticking of a thousand hungry clocks...”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“No matter how much I wanted all those things that I needed money to buy, there was some devilish current pushing me off in another direction -- toward anarchy and poverty and craziness. That maddening delusion that a man can lead a decent life without hiring himself out as a Judas Goat.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“He had come so far from himself that I don't
think he knew who he was anymore.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“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, quote from The Rum Diary

“A man can live on his wits and his balls for only so long.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“With the palms zipping past and the big sun burning down on the road ahead, I had a flash of something I hadn’t felt since my first months in Europe—a mixture of ignorance and a loose, “what the hell” kind of confidence that comes on a man when the wind picks up and he begins to move in a hard straight line toward an unknown horizon.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“I wanted to take off all my clothes and never wear them again.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“Whatever he might have denied me was unimportant; it was the
fact that he could deny me anything at all, even what I didn't want”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but to those who can see it coming and jump aside.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“She laughed. 'It won't last. Nothing lasts. But I'm happy now.'

'Happy,' I muttered, trying to pin the word down. But it is one of those words, like Love, that I have never quite understood. Most people who deal in words don't have much faith in them and I am no exception--especially the big ones like Happy and Love and Honest and Strong. They are too elusive and far too relative when you compare them to sharp, mean little words like Punk and Cheap and Phony. I feel at home with these, because they're scrawny and easy to pin, but the big ones are tough and it takes either a priest or a fool to use them with any confidence.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“He gave my hand a final shake. “Okay, Kemp,” he said with a grin. “Thanks a lot – you came through like a champ.” “Hell,” I said, starting the engine. “We’re all champs when we’re drunk.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“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, quote from The Rum Diary

“It was the kind of town that made you feel like Humphrey Bogart: you came in on a bumpy little plane, and, for some mysterious reason, got a private room with balcony overlooking the town and the harbor; then you sat there and drank until something happened.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“we left about midnight and walked down the hill in silence. the night was muggy, and all around me i felt the same pressure, a sense of time rushing by while it seemed to be standing still. whenever i thought of time in puerto rico, i was reminded of those old magnetic clocks that hung on the walls of my classrooms in high school. every now and then a hand would not move for several minutes -- and if i watched it long enough, wondering if it had finally broken down, the sudden click of the hand jumping three for four notches would startle me when it came.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“In the meantime, I would drink, rest, and ponder the meaning of this mob.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“Old God sure was in a good mood when he made this place.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“I had come to regard him as a loner with no real past and a future so vague that there was no sense talking about it.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“There is something fresh and crisp about the first hours of a Caribbean day, a happy anticipation that something is about to happen, maybe just up the street or around the next corner.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“But I knew it was pure masturbation, because down in my gut I wanted nothing more than a clean bed and a bright room and something solid to call my own at least until I got tired of it. There was an awful suspicion in my mind that I'd finally gone over the hump, and the worst thing about it was that I didn't feel tragic at all, but only weary, and sort of comfortably detatched.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“Though I was careful never to mention it, I began to see a new dimension in everything that happened.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

“Not much of what he said was original. What made him unique was the fact
that he had no sense of detachment at all. He was like the fanatical football fan who
runs onto the field and tackles a player. He saw life as the Big Game, and the whole
of mankind was divided into two teams -- Sala's Boys, and The Others. The stakes
were fantastic and every play was vital -- and although he watched with a nearly
obsessive interest, he was very much the fan, shouting unheard advice in a crowd of
unheard advisors and knowing all the while that nobody was paying any attention to
him because he was not running the team and never would be. And like all fans he
was frustrated by the knowledge that the best he could do, even in a pinch, would be
to run onto the field and cause some kind of illegal trouble, then be hauled off by
guards while the crowd laughed.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from The Rum Diary

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