He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
With a bit of luck, his life was ruined forever. Always thinking that just behind some narrow door in all of his favorite bars, men in red woolen shirts are getting incredible kicks from things he’ll never know.
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody understands at the time--and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive...." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas.
I'm a relatively respectable citizen. Multiple felon perhaps, but certainly not dangerous.
Still humping the American Dream
It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat sh** and die.
To the pessimist the light at the end of the tunnel is another train.
No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs. Reality itself is too twisted.
Art saved me; it got me through my depression and self-loathing, back to a place of innocence.
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.
A man who has blown all his options can't afford the luxury of changing his ways. He has to capitalize on whatever he has left, and he can't afford to admit - no matter how often he's reminded of it - that every day of his life takes him farther and farther down a blind alley.
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body.
Never create anything, it will be misinterpreted, it will chain you and follow you for the rest of your life.
My blood is too thick for California: I have never been able to properly explain myself in this climate.
My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.
It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.
Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
Myths and legends die hard in America.
Good people drink good beer.
Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser.
Just sick enough to be totally confident
Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men's reality. 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.
Jealousy is indeed a poor medium to secure love, but it is a secure medium to destroy one's self-respect. For jealous people, like dope-fiends, stoop to the lowest level and in the end inspire only disgust and loathing.
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.
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