William S. Burroughs Ipsum

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. silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing. 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 when you stop growing you start dying. cheat your landlord if you can -- and must -- but do not try to shortchange the muse. there is in fact something obscene and sinister about photography, a desire to imprison, to incorporate, a sexual intensity of pursuit. that's the one thing it needed the eyes..

Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact. our national drug is alcohol. we tend to regard the use any other drug with special horror. 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. 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. like all pure creatures, cats are practical. your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. whether you sniff it smoke it eat it or shove it up your ass the result is the same: addiction. 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. it would get drunk, too, and have crying jags. in the morning with transparentjelly... like a tadpole's tail he would tear it off his mouth and grow there. and the whole head... as one judge said to another judge: be just. and if you can't be just, be arbitrary. 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. 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.

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict; those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war. black magic operates most effectively in preconscious, marginal areas. casual curses are the most effective. 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. if i had my way we'd sleep every night all wrapped around each other like hibernating rattlesnakes. cheat your landlord if you can -- and must -- but do not try to shortchange the muse. the dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set-up by the non-dreamers nobody loved it. like a tadpole's tail the silent, helpless suffering as one judge said to another judge: be just. and if you can't be just, be arbitrary..