William S. Burroughs Ipsum

Anything that can be done chemically can be done by other means. nothing is true, everything is permitted. in deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality. a paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on. a psychotic is a guy who's just found out what's going on. silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing. nothing exists until or unless it is observed. an artist is making something exist by observing it. and his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. i call it 'creative observation.' creative viewing. i bear my burden proudly for all to see, to conquer prejudice and ignorance and hate with knowledge and sincerity and love. whenever you are threatened by a hostile presence, you emit a thick cloud of love like an octopus squirts out ink... every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage. thou shalt not be such a shit, you don't know you are one. it's the little touches that make a future solid enough to destroy. cheat your landlord if you can -- and must -- but do not try to shortchange the muse. as soon as you know you are in prison, you have a possibility to escape. we are all alone, born alone, die alone, and -- in spite of true romance magazines -- we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. i do not say lonely -- at least, not all the time -- but essentially, and finally, alone. this is what makes your self-respect so important, and i don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness but the asshole would eat its way through around here anymore. so, finally, his mouth sealed over... nerve connections were blocked... the silent, helpless suffering of the brain behind the eyes. the brain must have died... because the eyes went out... and there was no more feeling in them.

After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. i sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military. artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact. you were not there for the beginning. you will not be there for the end. your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative there is nothing more provocative than minding your own business. whether you like it or not, you are committed to the human endeavor. i cannot ally myself with such a purely negative goal as avoidance of suffering. suffering is a chance you take by the fact of being alive. panic is the sudden realization that everything around you is alive. in the morning with transparentjelly... because the eyes went out....

Perhaps all pleasure is only relief. the best way to keep something bad from happening is to see it ahead of time... and you can't see it if you refuse to face the possibility. beating at it with his fists... and sticking candles up it, but... and the pieces would stick to his hands... out of the closets and into the museums, libraries, architectural monuments, concert halls, bookstores, recording studios and film studios of the world. everything belongs to the inspired and dedicated thief.... words, colors, light, sounds, stone, wood, bronze belong to the living artist. they belong to anyone who can use them. loot the louvre! a bas l'originalit.