William S. Burroughs Ipsum

Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact. be just and if you can't be just, be arbitrary. silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing. which came first the intestine or the tapeworm? your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. in the u.s. you have to be a deviant or die of boredom. 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) it's the little touches that make a future solid enough to destroy. shouting out it wanted equal rights. and it wanted to be kissed, and the asshole said to him... after that, he began waking up so, finally, his mouth sealed over....

Black magic operates most effectively in preconscious, marginal areas. casual curses are the most effective. like all pure creatures, cats are practical. your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. 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... sealed off. what a horrible loutish planet this is. the dominant species consists of sadistic morons, faces bearing the hideous lineaments of spiritual famine swollen with stupid hate. hopeless rubbish..

After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say 'i want to see the manager.' 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. every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage. black magic operates most effectively in preconscious, marginal areas. casual curses are the most effective. i am getting so far out one day i won't come back at all. the face of evil is always the face of total need. smash the control images. smash the control machine. 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) artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact. writers, like elephants, have long, vicious memories. there are things i wish i could forget. 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. thou shalt not be such a shit, you don't know you are one. you know a real friend? someone you know will look after your cat after you are gone. hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside. open your mind and let the pictures out. then it developed sort of teethlike... and built an act around it... and sticking candles up it, but... around here anymore. i can talk and eat and shit." after that, he began waking up in the morning with transparentjelly... and the whole head... it needed the eyes. so, the brain couldn't of the brain behind the eyes. as one judge said to another judge: be just. and if you can't be just, be arbitrary..