Book detail: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream is presented as a focused source page for quotations connected with this book, collection, transcript, or source record.
A satirical and hallucinatory narrative that delves into the dark underbelly of Las Vegas, chronicling the drug-induced adventures of a journalist and his companion as they navigate the surreal landscape of the city and question the very essence of the American Dream.
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“Las Vegas is a society of armed masturbators/gambling is the kicker here/sex is extra/weird trip for high rollers ... house-whores for winners, hand jobs for the bad luck crowd.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“Las Vegas makes Reno seem like your friendly neighborhood grocery store.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“Few people understand the psychology of dealing with a highway traffic cop.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“Which is not really a hell of a lot to ask, Lord, because the final incredible truth is that I am not guilty. All I did was take your gibberish seriously... and you see where it got me? My primitive Christian instincts have made me a criminal.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug, especially when its waving a razor sharp hunting knife in your eye.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well...maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“Hallucinations are bad enough. But after awhile you learn to cope with things like seeing your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth. Most acid fanciers can handle this sort of thing. But nobody can handle that other trip-the possibility that any freak with $1.98 can walk into the Circus-Circus and suddenly appear in the sky over downtown Las Vegas twelve times the size of God, howling anything that comes into his head. No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“We came out here to find the American Dream, and now that we're right in the vortex you want to quit ... You must realize that we've found the main nerve." I know," he said. "That's what gives me the Fear.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“right' i said. 'but first, we need the car. and after that, the cocaine. and then the tape recorder, for special music, and some acapulco shirts.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs. Reality itself is too twisted.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“How long can we maintain? I wonder. How long before one of us starts raving and jabbering at this boy? What will he think then? This same lonely desert was the last known home of the Manson family. Will he make that grim connection.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“All energy flows according to the whims of the great Magnet. What a fool I was to defy him.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“But after a while you learn to cope with things like seeing your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth. Most acid fanciers can handle this sort of thing.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“My blood is too thick for California: I have never been able to properly explain myself in this climate.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“Still humping the American Dream”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“Who said anything about slicing you up? ... I just wanted to carve a little Z on your forehead-- nothing serious.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“A little bit of this town goes a very long way. After five days in Vegas you feel like you've been here for five years.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger: A man on the move, and just sick enough to be totally confident.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“Reality itself is too twisted.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“Just sick enough to be totally confident”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“We are all wired into a survival trip, now.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“Good mescaline comes on slow. The first hour is all waiting, then about halfway through the second hour you start cursing the creep who burned you, because nothing is happening...and then ZANG!”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“For a loser, Vegas is the meanest town on earth.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“A little bit of this town goes a very long way.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“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.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“من يجعل من نفسه وحشًا، يتخلص من ألم الإنسانية”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well...maybe chalk it up to forced consciousness expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Has it been five years? Six? It seems like a lifetime. The kind of peak that never comes again.
San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. But no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing you were there and alive, in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant...
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning...
And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave...
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“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!”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run...but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant...
History is hard to know...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 really understands at the time - and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“Sympathy? Not for me. No mercy for a criminal freak in Las Vegas. This place is like the Army: the shark ethic prevails - eat the wounded. In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .
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 really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .
And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era — the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run... but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant...
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning...
And that, I think, was the handle — that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply PREVAIL. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave...
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high water mark — that place where the wave finally broke, and rolled back.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .
And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“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 really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run… but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.…And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run … but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.…”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“. . . bush-league sex compared to L.A.; pasties here —total naked public humping in L.A. . . . Las Vegas is a society of armed masturbators/gambling is the kicker here/sex is extra/weird trip for high rollers . . . house-whores for winners, hand jobs for the bad luck crowd.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“The press is a gang of cruel faggots. 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.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously... All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody... or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
“KNOW YOUR DOPE FIEND. YOUR LIFE MAY DEPEND ON IT! You will not be able to see his eyes because of the Tea-Shades, but his knuckles will be white from inner tension and his pants will be crusted with semen from constantly jacking off when he can't find a rape victim. He will stagger and babble when questioned. He will not respect your badge. The Dope Fiend fears nothing. He will attack, for no reason, with every weapon at his command-including yours. BEWARE. Any officer apprehending a suspected marijuana addict should use all necessary force immediately. One stitch in time (on him) will usually save nine on you. Good luck.
-The Chief”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream