Hunter S. Thompson Quotes

My earliest memories are of my father explaining to me the American Dream and how he expected me to do better than he did.

I was well brought up, my parents are still together. I lived in a council estate, but I don't anymore; I saw my parents buy a nice house and move me to a nice area.

My parents were determined to move into the middle class.

I would say basically the commonplace observation that kids aren't going to earn as much as their parents is now is a coin flip at this point. Are you going to do better than your parents? It's a 50-50 chance, whereas if you were born in the 1940s or 1950s, you had more than a 90 percent chance you were going to do better than your parents. So basically almost a guarantee for most kids that you were going to achieve the American Dream of doing better than your parents did. Today, that's certainly no longer the case.

My mother wanted me to be a writer. But she was a child of the Depression and never understood that she wasn't poor. So, you know, the idea of not having a job, it would creep through. But she tried very hard to be subtle about it.

Sons have always a rebellious wish to be disillusioned by that which charmed their fathers.

I really hate it when people ask me who my icons are. When your parents are Bianca and Mick, you don't really need any more icons in your life.

I knew that I was a gay boy fairly early; what was interesting to me was that my mother didn't know. She made me play baseball - I had no desire to do that. I said, 'Mom, I don't like direct sunlight, I don't like bugs, I don't like grass, and I'd rather be in the house playing with your fabric samples.'

My parents were obsessed with us being normal kids, so I never knew movie stars. They didn't want us to be Hollywood brats.

I think young generation is always better than last generation. No matter you like it or don't like it. My father said, 'Jack, I'm so good, you'll never be' - but I'm better than him. My father is better than my grandfather. My children will be better than us.

I remember my parents being really on me about speaking in a certain way when I was young, I think because they came from a class that aspired to talk like that.

If you were brought up in the '40s, a kid in Ossining, New York, hanging out at the poolroom and stealing, how can you think, 'Here I am in Ossining. I, too, can be a movie star!'

In certain environments young adults can't choose their lives because of family pressure. In the bourgeoisie there is still a sense you will marry within that milieu.

My parents climbed their way to the middle class.

The life prospects of an American are more dependent on the income and education of his parents than in any of the other advanced industrial countries.

Ever wonder why people are so determined to reach for white picket fences, supposed normalcy, a nuclear family? Well, try growing up without one.

The most important thing of all is my parents were able to leave all four of their children better off than themselves. That story has a name, it's called the American dream.

Laborers want their kids to be merchants or business people. Business people want their kids to be professionals. Professionals want their kids to be academics, professors. Academics want their kids to be artists. And artists don't care if their kids are laborers or not. They can be anything.

As to the family, I have never understood how that fits in with the other ideals -- or, indeed, why it should be an ideal at all.

I'm the product of my parents' dreams and aspirations.

My father was a bricklayer, and my mother was a housewife. It was complicated, obviously, because of our humble origin, but thank God we were all focused.

As a kid, my dad moved us to the upper town, which was in a higher class of people, and we would see the lower town below. Every day, we could see where we came from and where we were now.

Low rents mean families have more resources to improve their quality of life and invest in the next generation, facilitating upward mobility.

Stern and critical, my father couldn't accept how feminine and dainty I was in comparison to my rough-and-tumble brother.

I think Ant and I were ambitious because of where we come from. Both of us are from working-class families on council estates in Newcastle.