Gambling can turn into a dangerous two-way street when you least expect it. Weird things happen suddenly, and your life can go all to pieces.
The highways are crowded with people who drive as if their sole purpose in getting behind the wheel is to avenge every wrong done them by man, beast or fate. The only thing that keeps them in line is their fear of death, jail and lawsuits.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on human behavior and motivation, suggesting that many people are driven by a desire for revenge and fear of consequences.
Hunter S. Thompson's quote critiques the aggressive and often reckless driving behaviors displayed by individuals on the road. It implies that people are often motivated by personal grievances and a desire for retribution, rather than a sense of responsibility or respect for others. This behavior is tempered only by the fear of severe repercussions, such as death or legal consequences, highlighting a raw aspect of human nature and societal norms.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about road rage and its psychological implications.
More from Hunter S. Thompson
All quotes →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.
Fiction is a bridge to the truth that journalism can't reach.
There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge.
Objective journalism is one of the main reasons that American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long.
When you write for a living and you can't do anything else, you know that sooner or later that the deadline is going to come screaming down on you like a goddamn banshee. There's no avoiding it...So one day you just don't appear at the El Adobe bar anymore; you shut the door, paint the windows black, rent an electric typewriter and become the monster you always were - the writer.
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Don't let people tell you to do it this way. You are on the verge of figuring out hybrid models -- with companies and nonprofits, markets, government, crowd-sourced philanthropy. The capitalist system as we know it is not working.
I've always been an ironic dreamer, unfaithful to my inner promises. Like a complete outsider, a casual observer of whom I thought I was, I've always enjoyed watching my daydreams go down in defeat. I was never convinced of what I believed in. I filled my hands with sand, called it gold, and opened them up to let it slide through. Words were my only truth. When the right words were said, all was done; the rest was the sand that had always been.
When the female voice is repressed and stifled, the entire community can easily find themselves cut off from the sacred feminine, depriving themselves of the full image of god.
Though all afflictions are evils in themselves, yet they are good for us, because they discover to us our disease and tend to our cure.
Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.