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The only other important thing to be said about Fear & Loathing at this time is that it was fun to write, and that's rare - for me, at least, because I've always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it's a bit like fucking - which is fun only for amateurs. Old whores don't do much giggling. Nothing is fun when you have to do it - over and over, again and again - or else you'll be evicted, and that gets old. So it's a rare goddamn trip for a locked-in, rent-paying writer to get into a gig that, even in retrospect, was a kinghell, highlife fucking from start to finish... and then to actually get paid for writing this kind of manic gibberish seems genuinely weird; like getting paid for kicking Agnew in the balls. So maybe there's hope. Or maybe I'm going mad... In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upward mobile - and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: Not necessarily to Win, but mainly to keep from Losing Completely... The Swine are gearing down for a serious workout this time around... So much, then, for The Road - and for the last possibilities of running amok in Las Vegas... Well, at least, I'll know I was there, neck deep in the madness, before the deal went down, and I got so high and wild that I felt like a two-ton Manta ray jumping all the way across the Bay of Bengal.

Hunter S. Thompson#5

CareerHumorWorkWritingHappinessLiterature

About this quote

What does it mean?
Thompson reflects on the rare joy of writing this book amidst normally hateful work.
In plain terms
Writing this book was fun even though writing is usually work.
What can you take from it?
Passion work breaks the cycle of drudgery.

Where it applies

  • creative work
  • career reflection

Putting it to work

  • seek passion projects
  • appreciate freedom

Questions to consider

  • What makes work enjoyable?
  • How often is your work fun?

Another view

It romanticizes the exception rather than the rule of professional writing.

More from Hunter S. Thompson

  1. I returned to the Holiday Inn - where they have a swimming pool and air-conditioned rooms - to consider the paradox of a nation that has given so much to those…

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  2. There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught th…

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  3. In a nation run by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: Not necessarily to Win, but mainly to ke…

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