William S. Burroughs Ipsum

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. the first and most important thing an individual can do is to become an individual again, decontrol himself, train himself as to what is going on and win back as much independent ground for himself as possible 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 junk merchant doesn't sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. he does not improve and simplify his merchandise. he degrades and simplifies the client. danger is a biologic necessity, like dreams. if you face death, for that time, for the period of direct confrontation, you are immortal. he would tear it off his mouth like burning gasoline jelly except for the eyes, you dig? that's the one thing it was trapped inside the skull... for a while, you could see... of the brain behind the eyes..

You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal. after one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say i want to see the manager. writers, like elephants, have long, vicious memories. there are things i wish i could forget. the face of 'evil' is always the face of total need. i miss you so much your absence causes me, at times, accute pain. i don't mean sexually. i mean in connection with my writing. it's the little touches that make a future solid enough to destroy. like all pure creatures, cats are practical. the brain must have died....

Language is a virus from outer space. 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. 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. be just and if you can't be just, be arbitrary. there is no intensity of love or feeling that does not involve the risk of crippling hurt. it is a duty to take this risk, to love and feel without defense or reserve. 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. silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing. whether you sniff it smoke it eat it or shove it up your ass the result is the same: addiction. the junk merchant doesn't sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. he does not improve and simplify his merchandise. he degrades and simplifies the client. as soon as you know you are in prison, you have a possibility to escape. in the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen. then it developed sort of teethlike... finally, it talked all the time, around here anymore. so, finally, his mouth sealed over... that's the one thing that the asshole couldn't do was see..