"In the cab I leaned back and lit a small cigar I'd bought

in the coffee shop. I was feeling better now, warm and

sleepy and absolutely free. With the palms zipping past

and the big sun burning down on the road ahead, I had a

flash of something I hadn't felt since my first months in

Europe - a mixture of ignorance and a loose, 'what the

hell' kind of confidence that comes on a man when the

wind picks up and he begins to move in a hard straight

line toward an unknown horizon."

"At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion tha the life

we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors,

kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the

tension between these two poles - a restless idealism on

one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other -

that kept me going."

- Hunter S. Thompson, "The Rum Diary"