Johnny Depp credited as playing...
Raoul Duke
- [watching Dr. Gonzo leave]
- Raoul Duke: There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.
- Raoul Duke: A drug person can learn to cope with things like seeing their dead grandmother crawling up their leg with a knife in her teeth. But no one should be asked to handle this trip.
- Raoul Duke: We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon.
- Raoul Duke: We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously... All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody... or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.
- Raoul Duke: There's a uh, big machine in the sky, some kind of, I dunno, electric snake, coming straight at us.
- Dr. Gonzo: Shoot it.
- Raoul Duke: Not yet, I want to study its habits.
- [first lines]
- Raoul Duke: [narrating] We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like:
- Raoul Duke: I feel a bit lightheaded. Maybe you should drive.
- Raoul Duke: [narrating] Suddenly, there was a terrible roar all around us, and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, and a voice was screaming:
- Raoul Duke: Holy Jesus. What are these goddamn animals?
- [swatting the air]
- Raoul Duke: Huh! Huh! Huh! Fucking pigs.
- Dr. Gonzo: Did you say something?
- Raoul Duke: Hm? Never mind. It's your turn to drive.
- Raoul Duke: [narrating] No point in mentioning these bats, I thought. Poor bastard will see them soon enough.
- Raoul Duke: And that, I think, was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
- Raoul Duke: The possibility of physical and mental collapse is now very real. No sympathy for the Devil, keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride.
- Raoul Duke: Look, there's two women fucking a polar bear!
- Dr. Gonzo: Don't tell me these things. Not now man.
- Raoul Duke: Order us some golf shoes, otherwise we'll never get out of this place alive. Impossible to walk in this muck. No footing at all.
- Raoul Duke: How long could we maintain? I wondered. How long until one of us starts raving and jabbering at this boy? What will he think then? This same lonely desert was the last known home of the Manson family; will he make that grim connection when my attorney starts screaming about bats and huge manta rays coming down on the car? If so, well, we'll just have to cut his head off and bury him somewhere, 'cause it goes without saying that we can't turn him loose. He'd report us at once to some kind of outback Nazi law enforcement agency and they'll run us down like dogs. Jesus, did I say that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me?
- Raoul Duke: Well? What are your plans?
- Dr. Gonzo: Plans?
- Raoul Duke: The child in the bedroom.
- Dr. Gonzo: Oh, Lucy. I met her on the plane. Yeah, she's a religious freak. I gave her a cap before I realized... Jesus, she's never even had a drink before.
- Raoul Duke: Well... it'll probably work out. We can keep her loaded and peddle her ass at the drug convention. Yeah. She's perfect for this gig. These cops will go fifty bucks a head to beat her into submission and then gang-fuck her. We can set her up in one of these back street motels, hang pictures of Jesus all over the room, then turn these fucking pigs loose on her. Hell, she's strong, man. She'll hold her own.
- Dr. Gonzo: Jesus Christ. I knew you were sick but I never expected to hear you actually say that kind of stuff, you filthy bastard.
- Raoul Duke: Straight economics, man. This girl is a godsend. Shit, she can make us a grand a day.
- Dr. Gonzo: That's ugly, man. Stop talking like that.
- Raoul Duke: I figure she can do about four at a time. If we keep her full of acid that's more like two grand a day. Maybe three.
- Dr. Gonzo: Hold on, man. What if I just jump you and beat the dog shit out of you? Would that make you feel better? You filthy bastard.
- Raoul Duke: All right, listen to me. In a few hours, she'll probably be sane enough to work herself into some kind of towering Jesus-based rage at the hazy recollection of being seduced by some kind of cruel Samoan who fed her liquor and LSD, dragged her to a Vegas hotel room and then savagely penetrated every orifice in her little body with his throbbing, uncircumcised member.
- Dr. Gonzo: That's so ugly, man!
- Raoul Duke: Fuck. Truth hurts.
- Dr. Gonzo: That's... argh! Argh! That's argh! Argh! That's argh!
- Raoul Duke: Argh!
- Dr. Gonzo: I wanted to help her, man.
- Raoul Duke: Well, you'll go straight to the gas chamber for this one. And even if you manage to beat that, they'll still send you back to Nevada for rape and consensual sodomy. She's got to go.
- Dr. Gonzo: Shit. It doesn't pay to try to help someone these days.
- Raoul Duke: [Beginning to narrate the "Jefferson Airplane" hallucination] There I was...
- [Seeing the actual Hunter S. Thompson sitting in the scene]
- Raoul Duke: Mother of God, there I am! Holy fuck...
- Raoul Duke: With a bit of luck, his life was ruined forever. Always thinking that just behind some narrow door in all of his favorite bars, men in red woolen shirts are getting incredible kicks from things he'll never know.
- Raoul Duke: I was right in the middle of a fucking reptile zoo, and somebody was giving booze to these goddamn things. Won't be long now before they tear us to shreds.
- Raoul Duke: I'm a relatively respectable citizen. Multiple felon perhaps, but certainly not dangerous.