William S. Burroughs Ipsum

After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. i sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military. a functioning police state needs no police. artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact. a paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on. how i hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity. there couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. they'd be dead in two weeks. like all pure creatures, cats are practical. the face of evil is always the face of total need. silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing. a paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on. 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. whether you sniff it smoke it eat it or shove it up your ass the result is the same: addiction. you were not there for the beginning. you will not be there for the end. your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative smash the control images. smash the control machine. there are no innocent bystanders... what are they doing there in the first place? writers, like elephants, have long, vicious memories. there are things i wish i could forget. when you stop growing you start dying. like all pure creatures, cats are practical. 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. it was unlike anything i ever heard. bubbly, thick, stagnant sound. a sound you could smell. this man worked for the carnival, you dig? shouting out it wanted equal rights. nobody loved it. day and night. and the asshole said to him... after that, he began waking up in the morning with transparentjelly... would have amputated spontaneously the brain must have died... out of the closets and into the museums, libraries, architectural monuments, concert halls, bookstores, recording studios and film studios of the world. everything belongs to the inspired and dedicated thief.... words, colors, light, sounds, stone, wood, bronze belong to the living artist. they belong to anyone who can use them. loot the louvre! a bas l'originalit.

Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact. a paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on. how i hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity. perhaps all pleasure is only relief. your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative. 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. after one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say i want to see the manager. there is nothing more provocative than minding your own business. 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. nothing is true, everything is permitted. panic is the sudden realization that everything around you is alive. 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, he would tear it off his mouth except for the eyes, you dig? as one judge said to another judge: be just. and if you can't be just, be arbitrary..

Hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside. nobody owns life, but anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death. 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) 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. there couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. they'd be dead in two weeks. 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 could hear him for blocks, so, the brain couldn't.