The Rum Diary

by Hunter S. Thompson

I shrugged. I’d assumed from the very beginning that Yeamon would sooner or later be killed—by somebody or some face less mob, for some reason or other, it seemed inevitable. There was a time I had been the same way. I wanted it all and I wanted it fast and no obstacle was big enough to put me off. Since then I had learned that some things were bigger than they looked from a distance, and now I was not so sure anymore just what I was going to get or even what I deserved.

You can’t just go through life like that—never giving an inch, anytime, anywhere.”

“We’re all going to the same damn places, doing the same damn things people have been doing for fifty years, and we keep waiting for something to happen.” He looked up. “You know—I’m a rebel, I took off—now where’s my reward?” “You fool,” I said. “There is no reward and there never was.”

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but to those who can see it coming and jump aside. Like a frog evading a shillelagh in a midnight marsh.