William S. Burroughs Ipsum

Our national drug is alcohol. we tend to regard the use any other drug with special horror. junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. no sales talk necessary. the client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy. 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. i am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. 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. my affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits. after one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say i want to see the manager. smash the control images. smash the control machine. artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact. every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage. 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. 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. a cat's rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling blue sparks, eyes blazing and sputtering. there is in fact something obscene and sinister about photography, a desire to imprison, to incorporate, a sexual intensity of pursuit. 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. his pants and start talking on the street... it would get drunk, too, and have crying jags. and it wanted to be kissed, same as any other mouth. all over his mouth. and grow there. so, finally, his mouth sealed over... nerve connections were blocked... 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.

Most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can't mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus has. 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. black magic operates most effectively in preconscious, marginal areas. casual curses are the most effective. junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. no sales talk necessary. the client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy. like all pure creatures, cats are practical. perhaps all pleasure is only relief. 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 i am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. 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. my affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits. 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. 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. 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. how i hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity. and built an act around it... "it is you who will shut up in the end, not me... and the pieces would stick to his hands... like burning gasoline jelly except for the eyes, you dig? so, the brain couldn't as one judge said to another judge: be just. and if you can't be just, be arbitrary..

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. there couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. they'd be dead in two weeks. hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside. perhaps all pleasure is only relief. smash the control images. smash the control machine. love is a haunting melody that i have never mastered, and i fear i never will. 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 after one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say i want to see the manager. never do business with a religious son-of-a-bitch. his word ain't worth a shit -- not with the good lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal. 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. it's the little touches that make a future solid enough to destroy. as soon as you know you are in prison, you have a possibility to escape. like all pure creatures, cats are practical. open your mind and let the pictures out. then it developed sort of teethlike... after that, he began waking up that the asshole couldn't do was see. so, the brain couldn't it was trapped inside the skull....