Adam Bulger interviews Hunter S. Thompson, "early March 2003," at freezerbox.com:
[HST] I talk about this all the time to a lot of people: Are you more optimistic about the next ten years than about the last, when you started?
[AB] Who, me?
[HST] Yeah.
[AB] No! I . . . man, to rip you off, I'm full of fear and loathing. I am a citizen in the Kingdom of Fear. I'm scared every waking moment man.
[HST] Well, uh, Jesus, that's horrible! That's a kind of, uh, prevailing sentiment.
[AB] Yeah.
[HST] And you know, you look at fear and people, a population that's uh, just riddled with fear and confusion and, uh, loathing, goddamn. Never did it occur to me when I came up with those words that I would be using them to describe the state of the nation 30 years later or whatever.