"Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously."

(Hunter S. Thompson)

"'Crazy' is a term of art; 'Insane' is a term of law. Remember that, and you will save yourself a lot of trouble."
(Hunter S. Thompson)

"I am an addictive personality, they say. A natural slave to passion - and many doctors have warned me against it. I am a High-Risk patient."
(Hunter S. Thompson)

And I admit that I ain't no angel
I admit that I ain't no saint
I'm selfish and I'm cruel but you're blind
If I exorcise my devils
Well my angels may leave too
When they leave they're so hard to find.
(Tom Waits)

"I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don't worry. It's all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don't know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It's a dream already ended. There's nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. I know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born."
(Jack Kerouac)

"I bear my burden proudly for all to see, to conquer prejudice and ignorance and hate with knowledge and sincerity and love. Whenever you are threatened by a hostile presence, you emit a thick cloud of love like an octopus squirts out ink..."
(William S. Burroughs)

There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see you.
...I only let him out at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
...he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die.
(Charles Bukowski)