William S. Burroughs Ipsum

Man is an artifact designed for space travel. he is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole. i am getting so far out one day i won't come back at all. the cat does not offer services. the cat offers itself. of course he wants care and shelter. you don't buy love for nothing. desperation is the raw material of drastic change. only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape. in the u.s. you have to be a deviant or die of boredom. 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. every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage. i am getting so far out one day i won't come back at all. it is to be remembered that all art is magical in origin - music, sculpture, writing, painting - and by magical i mean intended to produce very definite results. paintings were originally formulae to make what is painted happen. art is not an end in itself, any more than einstein's matter-into-energy formulae is an end in itself. like all formulae, art was originally functional, intended to make things happen, the way an atom bomb happens from einstein's formulae. shouting out it wanted equal rights. it would get drunk, too, and have crying jags. nobody loved it. and it wanted to be kissed, you could hear him for blocks, screaming at it to shut up... beating at it with his fists... after that, he began waking up in the morning with transparentjelly... like a tadpole's tail than a crab's eye at the end of a stalk..

Anything that can be done chemically can be done by other means. happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict; those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war. admittedly, a homosexual can be conditioned to react sexually to a woman, or to an old boot for that matter. in fact, both homo - and heterosexual experimental subjects have been conditioned to react sexually to an old boot, and you can save a lot of money that way. most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can't mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus has. man is an artifact designed for space travel. he is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole. sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts. hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside. you can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal. silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing. your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative. whether you sniff it smoke it eat it or shove it up your ass the result is the same: addiction. language is a virus from outer space. the question is frequently asked: why does a man become a drug addict? the answer is that he usually does not intend to become an addict. you don't wake up one morning and decide to be a drug addict. it takes at least three months' shooting twice a day to get any habit at all. and you don't really know what junk sickness is until you have had several habits. it took me almost six months to get my first habit, and then the withdrawal symptoms were mild. i think it no exaggeration to say it takes about a year and several hundred injections to make an addict. the questions, of course, could be asked: why did you ever try narcotics? why did you continue using it long enough to become an addict? you become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong motivations in the other direction. junk wins by default. i tried it as a matter of curiosity. i drifted along taking shots when i could score. i ended up hooked. most addicts i have talked to report a similar experience. they did not start using drugs for any reason they can remember. they just drifted along until they got hooked. if you have never been addicted, you can have no clear idea what it means to need junk with the addict's special need. you don't decide to be an addict. one morning you wake up sick and you're an addict. (junky, prologue, p. xxxviii) knowing you might not make it... in that knowledge courage is born. cheat your landlord if you can -- and must -- but do not try to shortchange the muse. in homosexual sex you know exactly what the other person is feeling, so you are identifying with the other person completely. in heterosexual sex you have no idea what the other person is feeling. as a young child i wanted to be a writer because writers were rich and famous. they lounged around singapore and rangoon smoking opium in a yellow pongee silk suit. they sniffed cocaine in mayfair and they penetrated forbidden swamps with a faithful native boy and lived in the native quarter of tangier smoking hashish and languidly caressing a pet gazelle. 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 nothing is true, everything is permitted. then it developed sort of teethlike... little raspy incurving hooks after that, he began waking up in the morning with transparentjelly... and the pieces would stick to his hands... like burning gasoline jelly so, finally, his mouth sealed over... would have amputated spontaneously it needed the eyes. so, the brain couldn't.

The face of evil is always the face of total need. i am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. i don't care if people hate my guts; i assume most of them do. the important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it. my affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits. but the asshole would eat its way through and sticking candles up it, but... and grow there. of the brain behind the eyes..