William S. Burroughs Ipsum

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. 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. there couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. they'd be dead in two weeks. sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts. your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative. 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. 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. the dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set-up by the non-dreamers 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. 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 started eating. nobody loved it..

Our national drug is alcohol. we tend to regard the use any other drug with special horror. be just and if you can't be just, be arbitrary. the face of evil is always the face of total need. your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative. 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. there is nothing more provocative than minding your own business. writers, like elephants, have long, vicious memories. there are things i wish i could forget. 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. to be an outlaw you must first have a base in law to reject and get out of, i never had such a base. i never had a place i could call home that meant any more than a key to a house, apartment or hotel room. ... am i alien? alien from what exactly? perhaps my home is my dream city, more real than my waking life precisely because it has no relation to waking life... 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 would get drunk, too, and have crying jags. finally, it talked all the time, around here anymore. all over his mouth. and infiltrated and atrophied. give orders anymore. sealed off. than a crab's eye at the end of a stalk..

Anything that can be done chemically can be done by other means. your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative. if i had my way we'd sleep every night all wrapped around each other like hibernating rattlesnakes. 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) hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside. and built an act around it... finally, it talked all the time, nothing did any good, all over his mouth. for a while, you could see....