William S. Burroughs Ipsum

You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal. if i had my way we'd sleep every night all wrapped around each other like hibernating rattlesnakes. there are no innocent bystanders... what are they doing there in the first place? every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage. and built an act around it... and grow there..

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. never do business with a religious son-of-a-bitch. his word ain't worth a shit -- not with the good lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal. 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) the face of 'evil' is always the face of total need. knowing you might not make it... in that knowledge courage is born. it's the little touches that make a future solid enough to destroy. and sticking candles up it, but....

A cat's rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling blue sparks, eyes blazing and sputtering. like all pure creatures, cats are practical. 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... thou shalt not be such a shit, you don't know you are one. knowing you might not make it... in that knowledge courage is born. 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. 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. danger is a biologic necessity, like dreams. if you face death, for that time, for the period of direct confrontation, you are immortal. 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. his pants and start talking on the street... screaming at it to shut up... in the end, not me....