A Hunter S. Thompson sampling on the occasion of his birthday
- NYS Writers Institute
- Jul 18
- 4 min read
Born July 18, 1937, Hunter S. Thompson died February 20, 2005. Later that year his remains were famously shot out of a 153-foot tall cannon. Regular readers will recall Thompson's decades-long friendship with our founder William Kennedy. See videos below.
Plenty of jaw-dropping Hunter stories have been printed, but the best ones were his own, told with a drink in hand. See photos above from his 1997 visit to the Writers Institute.
Today we celebrate the fearless, unfiltered Thompson with a sprinkling of his quotes. Happy birthday, Gonzo, wherever you are. Here's to you ...
“Richard Nixon has never been one of my favorite people, anyway. For years I've regarded his very existence as a monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosomes that corrupt the possibilities of the American Dream; he was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad.”
--- --- ---
[A related quote from Ralph Steadman, Thompson's longtime collaboration whose illustrations helped mold the Gonzo persona:
If you wonder if he's gone to Heaven or Hell, rest assured he will check out them both, find out which one Richard Milhous Nixon went to — and go there.”]
--- --- ---
"Unlike Tom Wolfe or Gay Talese, I almost never try to reconstruct a story. They're both much better reporters than I am, but then, I don't think of myself as a reporter."
--- --- ---
"“We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear — fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer.”
--- --- ---
“Pray to God, but row away from the rocks.”
--- --- ---
“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!'”
--- --- ---
“A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.”
--- --- ---
“If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up.”
--- --- ---
“America...just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable”
--- --- ---
“As things stand now, I am going to be a writer. I'm not sure that I'm going to be a good one or even a self-supporting one, but until the dark thumb of fate presses me to the dust and says 'you are nothing', I will be a writer.”
--- --- ---
“We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold.”
--- --- ---
“Breakfast is the only meal of the day that I tend to view with the same kind of traditionalized reverence that most people associate with Lunch and Dinner. I like to eat breakfast alone, and almost never before noon; anybody with a terminally jangled lifestyle needs at least one psychic anchor every twenty-four hours, and mine is breakfast. In Hong Kong, Dallas or at home — and regardless of whether or not I have been to bed — breakfast is a personal ritual that can only be properly observed alone, and in a spirit of genuine excess. The food factor should always be massive: four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crepes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef hash with diced chiles, a Spanish omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random seasoning, and something like a slice of Key lime pie, two margaritas, and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert… Right, and there should also be two or three newspapers, all mail and messages, a telephone, a notebook for planning the next twenty-four hours and at least one source of good music… All of which should be dealt with outside, in the warmth of a hot sun, and preferably stone naked.”
--- --- ---
“I am surprised and embarrassed to be a part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it.”
--- --- ---
"Good news is rare these days, and every glittering ounce of it should be cherished and hoarded and worshipped and fondled like a priceless diamond."
--- --- ---
“I'm a relatively respectable citizen. Multiple felon perhaps, but certainly not dangerous.”
--- --- ---
“We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws.”
--- --- ---
“I haven't found a drug yet that can get you anywhere near as high as a sitting at a desk writing, trying to imagine a story no matter how bizarre it is, [or] going out and getting into the weirdness of reality and doing a little time on the Proud Highway.”
--- --- ---
"As long as I'm learning something, I figure I'm OK - it's a decent day."
--- --- ---
Thompson visited the NYS Writers Institute in the late 1990s for a program at the University at Albany with historian Douglas Brinkley titled "Conversations on Politics and Literature." During that visit, Thompson sat for drinks with his longtime friend, Writers Institute founder William Kennedy.