William S. Burroughs Ipsum

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. anything that can be done chemically can be done by other means. every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage. you can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal. 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. after one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say i want to see the manager. there are no innocent bystanders... what are they doing there in the first place? 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... cheat your landlord if you can -- and must -- but do not try to shortchange the muse. hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside. 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. there is in fact something obscene and sinister about photography, a desire to imprison, to incorporate, a sexual intensity of pursuit. how i hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity. nothing is true, everything is permitted. and to start with it was like a novelty ventriloquist act. after a while, the ass started talking on its own. he would go in without anything prepared... and his ass would ad-lib and toss the gags back at him every time. his pants and start talking on the street... beating at it with his fists... and sticking candles up it, but... "because we don't need you i can talk and eat and shit." in the morning with transparentjelly... he would tear it off his mouth and the pieces would stick to his hands... like burning gasoline jelly and there was no more feeling in them.

The way to kill a man or a nation is to cut off his dreams, the way the whites are taking care of the indians: killing their dreams, their magic, their familiar spirits. i am getting so far out one day i won't come back at all. smash the control images. smash the control machine. 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..

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. our national drug is alcohol. we tend to regard the use any other drug with special horror. a paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on. the way to kill a man or a nation is to cut off his dreams, the way the whites are taking care of the indians: killing their dreams, their magic, their familiar spirits. the aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values. in my writing i am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas, a cosmonaut of inner space, and i see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed. silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing. smash the control images. smash the control machine. 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. if i had my way we'd sleep every night all wrapped around each other like hibernating rattlesnakes. 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) there are no innocent bystanders... what are they doing there in the first place? 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... you know a real friend? someone you know will look after your cat after you are gone. a cat's rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling blue sparks, eyes blazing and sputtering. 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 i am not a person and i am not an animal. there is something i am here for something i must do before i can go. did i ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk? his whole abdomen would move up and down, you dig, farting out the words. and it wanted to be kissed, finally, it talked all the time, nothing did any good, so, finally, his mouth sealed over... that's the one thing so, the brain couldn't and there was no more feeling in them.