Ralph Steadman

"Maybe he is the Mark Twain of the late twentieth century. Time will sort the bastard out and I leave it to others more qualified than me to assess and appraise his monumental literary legacy."

"One can derive the same fun from print-making as from making mud pies and great subtlety can be achieved through the use of transparent inks, half-tone screens and even accidental colour combinations, which is often where the art hides."

"Those Fear and Loathing drawings were only possible for me because of the Americas Cup six months earlier, which injected the the drawings with the eerie sense of being there to record the sensations. It was a regurgitation, a psycho-artistic vomit - a creative, cathartic cleansing of my inner being."

"We thought that we had suffered all our wars and now we could enjoy a time of peace and tranquillity. However, people never learn and a newer type of war was to envelope us. We seem doomed to repeat all our mistakes and find that we are being groomed, and doomed, by the legions of war, Odins messengers, who would have us believe that aggression is the only way forward. Now we live in a war zone, the entire world."

"Funny thing about Americans. They are the first to adopt weird lifestyles and radical views but they are the most conservative race on earth."

"Whores get bow-legged and bankers get mean, which is strange when you think that that if whores get bow-legged, bankers should get generous, but they never do."

"Hunter Thompson wasnt Joseph Conrad, Jimmy Carter wasnt Harry Trueman. But strangely, Richard Nixon was Richard Nixon. Im no Pablo Picasso but theres no harm in straining. After all, the charm of any activity is in the trying and so rarely in the finished article."

"Americans love DONT. Thou shalt not. The bedrock of received knowledge - the Ten Commandments. The God fearing pioneers who still had a long way to go. GO! DONT GO! GO. FUCK YOU GOD! Were on our way..."

"Dont write, Ralph. Youll bring shame on your family. -- Hunter S. Thompson --"

"Happiness is a Small Politician - my mantra then and forever more."

"Each boat is worth the price of a new university and they are watched by gin-soaked yachting types, male and female, in captains hats lounging in deckchairs inside Perspex covered enclosures at the front of yet more expensive, floating country houses representing nothing more than elegantly vulgar expressions of dodgy wealth. The Americas Cup."

"I was in a slightly befuddled state by this time and the potent combination of watery beer and whiskey was bringing on a severe attack of drawing, as always happens when I start seeing unusual faces through a haze of controlled drinking. My body becomes a protective casing and lets me observe through the two keyholes on the front of my head."