William S. Burroughs Ipsum

A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on. how i hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity. nothing is true, everything is permitted. there couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. they'd be dead in two weeks. in deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality. 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. perhaps all pleasure is only relief. the cat does not offer services. the cat offers itself. of course he wants care and shelter. you don't buy love for nothing. the face of evil is always the face of total need. 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. 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 there is nothing more provocative than minding your own business. there are no innocent bystanders... what are they doing there in the first place? 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. as soon as you know you are in prison, you have a possibility to escape. like all pure creatures, cats are practical. a cat's rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling blue sparks, eyes blazing and sputtering. panic is the sudden realization that everything around you is 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? little raspy incurving hooks his pants and start talking on the street... and the asshole said to him... "it is you who will shut up in the end, not me... i can talk and eat and shit." he would tear it off his mouth give orders anymore. than a crab's eye at the end of a stalk. 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..

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. the dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set-up by the non-dreamers 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. and it wanted to be kissed, and then finally than a crab's eye at the end of a stalk..

Anything that can be done chemically can be done by other means. artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact. 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. in deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality. hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside. like all pure creatures, cats are practical. which came first the intestine or the tapeworm? your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. 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 after one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say i want to see the manager. 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. 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. when you stop growing you start dying. knowing you might not make it... in that knowledge courage is born. in homosexual sex you know exactly what the other person is feeling, so you are identifying with the other person completely. in heterosexual sex you have no idea what the other person is feeling. 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. it was unlike anything i ever heard. bubbly, thick, stagnant sound. a sound you could smell. this man worked for the carnival, you dig? little raspy incurving hooks around here anymore. in the morning with transparentjelly... so, finally, his mouth sealed over... nerve connections were blocked... and infiltrated and atrophied. for a while, you could see... the brain must have died....