William S. Burroughs Ipsum

The cat does not offer services. the cat offers itself. of course he wants care and shelter. you don't buy love for nothing. 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..

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. anything that can be done chemically can be done by other means. a paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on. in my writing i am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas, a cosmonaut of inner space, and i see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed. the only possible ethic is to do what one wants to do. silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing. which came first the intestine or the tapeworm? 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 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) there are no innocent bystanders... what are they doing there in the first place? the face of 'evil' is always the face of total need. every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage. it's the little touches that make a future solid enough to destroy. as a young child i wanted to be a writer because writers were rich and famous. they lounged around singapore and rangoon smoking opium in a yellow pongee silk suit. they sniffed cocaine in mayfair and they penetrated forbidden swamps with a faithful native boy and lived in the native quarter of tangier smoking hashish and languidly caressing a pet gazelle. a cat's rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling blue sparks, eyes blazing and sputtering. in the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen. 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. you could hear him for blocks, all over his mouth. he would tear it off his mouth would have amputated spontaneously for a while, you could see... the silent, helpless suffering and then finally and there was no more feeling in them.

After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say 'i want to see the manager.' there couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. they'd be dead in two weeks. junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. no sales talk necessary. the client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy. in my writing i am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas, a cosmonaut of inner space, and i see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed. silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing. 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. 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. 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 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. the face of 'evil' is always the face of total need. 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. every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage. knowing you might not make it... in that knowledge courage is born. i am getting so far out one day i won't come back at all. there is in fact something obscene and sinister about photography, a desire to imprison, to incorporate, a sexual intensity of pursuit. panic is the sudden realization that everything around you is alive. little raspy incurving hooks and started eating. and built an act around it... after that, he began waking up except for the eyes, you dig? sealed off. the silent, helpless suffering the brain must have died....