“The hard core, the outlaw elite, were the Hell’s Angels… wearing the winged death’s-head on the back of their sleeveless jackets and packing their ‘mamas’ behind them on big ‘chopped hogs.’ They rode with a fine unwashed arrogance, secure in their reputation as the rottenest motorcycle gang in the whole history of Christendom.”

–Hunter S. Thompson – Hell’s Angels 1966

Hunter S. Thompson’s epic images of Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang members

“We’re the one percenters, man — the ones who don’t fit and don’t care.  So don’t talk to me about your doctor bills and your traffic warrants — I mean you get your woman and your bike and your banjo and I mean your on your way.  We’ve punched our way out of a hundred rumbles, stayed alive with our boots and our fists.  We’re royalty among motorcycle outlaws, baby.”

–A Hell’s Angel speaking for the permanent record

Hunter S. Thompson’s epic images of Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang members

“Some of them are pure animals. They’d be animals in any society. These guys are outlaw types who should have been born a hundred years ago– when they would have been gunfighters.”

–Birney Jarvis, a charter member of the Hell’s Angels who later became a San Francisco Chronicle police reporter

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