Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a polarizing book that tackles what happens when you take on the so-called American Dream under the influence of psychedelics. It was adapted into a movie that was released in 1998 and has become quite a popular film for people who appreciate black comedy. While it is not the most talked-about book or movie, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas leaves us with good lines and quotes we can actually learn from.
I’m a relatively respectable citizen. Multiple felons perhaps, but certainly not dangerous.
We are all respectable citizens in our own ways. Some of us might have done a few bad things in life, and there are those that have stayed out of trouble throughout their entire existence. But the fact is that, as long as you are relatively less dangerous than other felons are, then you might just be as good as any other citizen.
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.
If you are in the sense of total bliss and euphoria, everything around you seems to be in a total surreal state that can be too difficult to make sense of. You feel like you are in Cloud Nine and that there is nothing wrong with whatever you are doing. That is what it means to be in total bliss as the mind and body float up in a euphoric state that nothing else in the world can beat.
All energy flows according to the whims of the great Magnet. What a fool I was to defy him.
A lot of us believe in a strong will that has the power to control whatever direction everyone in the world takes. To some, it is God. For others, it is simply the wills of everyone in the universe coming together to form one single will that moves us towards the direction we should take. There is no defying such a will.
Kill the body and the head will die.
While the usual saying is that we should kill the head and the rest of the body will die, the same could also be true if we kill the body. That is because if the head does not have a body, it won’t have anything to use to move and do practically anything useful. It will eventually die knowing that it is now completely useless without its body the same as how any leader dies when it no longer has any followers to do his bidding for him.
The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon.
Substance abuse is never a beautiful thing. People quickly get addicted to drugs, which can easily worry about other people around them. That is because if a man is left mentally and physically addicted to the ecstatic and euphoric sensation of being under the influence of drugs, he becomes the most irresponsible being on the entire planet.
If I put you in the pool right now, you’ll sink like a god damn stone. You took too much man, you took too much, too much. Don’t try and fight it. You’ll get brain bubbles, strokes, aneurisms. You’ll just wither up and die.
This is a safety tip for those who have taken too much of something regardless of whether or not it is a harmful substance. When you had too much of what you could handle, never try to fight off the feeling, or the feeling will just fight back and hurt you mentally and physically. Instead, wait for the sensation to die a natural death and make sure you never overdo it ever again.
The room was very quiet. I walked over to the TV set and turned it on to a dead channel-white noise at maximum decibels, a fine sound for sleeping, a powerful continuous hiss to drown out everything strange.
Silence can actually be the most defeating sound on the entire planet. There are people who thrive on background noises that seemingly blend well with one another to produce a sound that they could get used to. At times, white noise can also be good therapy for those who crave for anything other than dead silence.
I wouldn’t dare go to sleep with you wandering around with a head full of acid, wanting to slice me up with that goddamn knife.
Always keep yourself alert when there is someone you do not trust lurking around. After all, you do not want to end up getting sliced up or betrayed when you are at your most vulnerable state. That is why you might want to keep an eye open even when you are resting.
We’d be fools not to ride this strange torpedo all the way out to the end.
If there is a chance for you to take yourself out on an adventure, even though it might be the strangest thing ever, then you might want to take the opportunity to do so.
But our trip was different. It was to be a classic affirmation of everything right and true in the national character. A gross physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country. But only for those with true grit.
America is indeed the land of endless opportunities. There are simply a lot of things you can do in this country, even though some of them might not be the ideal things to do in life. But, hey, the only way for you to actually make those possibilities into reality is for you to have the grit necessary to make things happen.
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.
There is a reason why a lot of people like going to Las Vegas for an escape. And there is also a reason why a lot of people do not stay too long in The Strip. When you take Vegas in for everything it has to offer, it can be too heavy for anyone to the point that it could make you age a hundred times faster.
Every now and then you run up on one of those days when everything’s in vain … a stone bummer from start to finish, and if you know what’s good for you, on days like these, you sort of hunker down in a safe corner and watch.
We all have those days wherein everything just does not seem to work in our favor. And during those days, the only thing that would probably give you some comfort is to stay in a safe corner and watch how things unfold from your perspective.
One of the things you learn from years of dealing with drug people is that you can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug. Especially when it’s waving a razor-sharp hunting knife in your eye.
If you know addiction on a firsthand basis or if you know people who have been through that stage in their lives, you would certainly understand how difficult it is to turn your back on what is fueling your addiction. That is why addicts need professional help and intervention.
Ah, devil ether. It makes you behave like the village drunkard in some early Irish novel. Total loss of all basic motor skills. Blurred vision, no balance, numb tongue. The mind recoils in horror, unable to communicate with the spinal column. Which is interesting because you can actually watch yourself behaving in this terrible way, but you can’t control it.
This is basically how drugs affect you once you get too addicted to them. It is an uncontrollable feeling that not even self-control would be enough to stop the sensation of wanting to get more and more. In a sense, the only way for you to escape this feeling is to actually avoid getting yourself immersed in the culture of drug use.
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.
While the history books dictate to us what had happened in the past, there are really no surefire ways for us to know what truly happened back then because of how historians are writing history based on their point of view and the perspectives of those who they are writing for. But for some reason, an entire generation tends to share the same thoughts about what had happened to make clear to us what had really transpired back then.
There is nothing worse than a man in the throws of an ether bender.
A man who is addicted to a certain drug or an addictive substance should be someone you should fear the most. That is because an addicted man would do anything and everything just to make sure that his addiction and his cravings get silenced.
Old elephants limp off to the hills to die; old Americans go out to the highway and drive themselves to death with huge cars.
The older one gets, the more likely it is you want to just simply do something you want to do until death takes you. Take, for example, the people who drive on the highway without a care in the world as if they were subconsciously telling death to take them.
As your attorney, I advise you to get the chiliburger. It’s a hamburger with chili on it.
A word of advice: always go for something that has a little bit extra on it. Do not settle on what is plain and simple. Go for the things that have that extra chili and spice to make things more interesting.
For a loser, Vegas is the meanest town on earth.
Las Vegas has its own way of becoming one of the most polarizing places on earth. For winners, it is a place of paradise that allows them to do what pleases them. On the other hand, for losers, it is the worst place on earth to be in as you will only lose even more by staying in Vegas.
How many more nights and weird mornings can this terrible shit go on? How long can the body and the brain tolerate this doom-struck craziness? This grinding of teeth, this pouring of sweat, this pounding of blood in the temples… small blue veins are gone amok in front of the ears, sixty and seventy hours with no sleep.
Want to know what it is like to be suffering from the effects of drugs? Well, here it is. You won’t be able to easily get through such sensations and feelings. For others, it can be pleasurable. But for most people, this is a feeling that is just so difficult to tolerate.
When you bring an act into this town, you want to bring it in heavy. Don’t waste any time with cheap shucks and misdemeanors. Go straight for the jugular.
When you want to go to Vegas and make it big there, the simple things will not do. No person would want to waste their time watching cheap parlor tricks. Instead, they want to see those who would rather go big than go home, those who go straight to the jugular to slice it up in one quick slash.
This is one of the hallmarks of Vegas hospitality. The only bedrock rule is Don’t Burn the Locals. Beyond that, nobody cares. They would rather not know. If Charlie Manson checked into the Sahara tomorrow morning, nobody would hassle him as long as he tipped big.
Simple tip: when you go to Las Vegas, you can do anything you want to do. But you always have to respect the locals. Treat them well, and they won’t even care if you decided to burn the entire hotel down.
You better take care of me, Lord. If you don’t, you’re gonna have me in your hands.
If you are wondering why the worst people are the last to go, then this is the reason why. They are well taken care of throughout their entire lives, probably because the afterlife does not want them hanging around there.
Too weird to live and too rare to die.
Some people tend to fit this very notion of how they do not fit the norms of the society but are also personalities so rare that nobody wants to see them dying off. They are novelties that make life seem too interesting.
It was dangerous lunacy, but it was also the kind of thing a real connoisseur of edge-work could make an argument for.
Sometimes there are things that you would actually agree to be too crazy for you to do. But for some reason, you still want to do them for the sake of having a life with no regrets whatsoever.
Conclusion
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas might not be the most memorable book or movie in most circles, but you have to hand it to it when it comes to leaving us with valuable lessons that reflect what actually is transpiring in society then and now.
