Background Image

...

Evidence Indicates That Cats Were First Tamed In Egypt. The Egyptians Stored Grain, Which Attracted Rodents, Which Attracted Cats. (no Evidence That Such A Thing Happened With The Mayans, Though A Number Of Wild Cats Are Native To The Area.) I Don't Think This Is Accurate. It Is Certainly Not The Whole Story. Cats Didn't Start As Mousers. Weasels And Snakes And Dogs Are More Efficient As Rodent-control Agents. I Postulate That Cats Started As Psychic Companions, As Familiars, And Have Never Deviated From This Function.

-William S. Burroughs

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Evidence Indicates That Cats

William S. Burroughs

...

Evidence Indicates That Cats Were First Tamed In Egypt. The Egyptians Stored Grain, Which Attracted Rodents, Which Attracted Cats. (no Evidence That Such A Thing Happened With The Mayans, Though A Number Of Wild Cats Are Native To The Area.) I Don't Think This Is Accurate. It Is Certainly Not The Whole Story. Cats Didn't Start As Mousers. Weasels And Snakes And Dogs Are More Efficient As Rodent-control Agents. I Postulate That Cats Started As Psychic Companions, As Familiars, And Have Never Deviated From This Function.

Views: 6

Topic

More From William S. Burroughs

By The Flaws In The Picture The Truth Will Emerge.

The Underground Press Serves As The Only Effective Counter To A Growing Power, And More Sophisticated Techniques Used By Establishment Mass Media To Falsify, Misrepresent, Misquote, Rule Out Of Consideration As A Priori Ridiculous, Or Simply Ignore And Blot Out Of Existence: Data, Books, Discoveries That They Consider Prejudicial To Establishment Interest.

Strip Your Psyche To The Bare Bones Of Spontaneous Process, And You Give Yourself One Chance In A Thousand To Make The Pass.

Piss Off Satan And Don't Take Me For Dumber Than I Look.

[arab Peoples] Are Stuck Back Thousands Of Years And They Think They're Going To Get Out With A Tv Set.

Hemingway Said: 'it Don't Come Anymore.' So Where Did It Go?

The Nonconformist Here May Be "beat Down" By Life But Still Has A Beauty In His Or Her Longing For Freedom And For An Awakening Of The Mind.

There Isn't A Feeling You Can Get On Drugs That You Can't Get Without Drugs.

Love? What Is It? Most Natural Painkiller What There Is.

It Is Indeed Difficult To Make A Living As A Writer, And My Advice To Anyone Contemplating A Literary Career Is To Have Some Other Trade.

I Feel That Any Form Of So Called Psychotherapy Is Strongly Contraindicated For Addicts. The Question Why Did You Start Using Narcotics In The First Place? Should Never Be Asked. It Is Quite As Irrelevant To Treatment As It Would Be To Ask A Malarial Patient Why He Went To A Malarial Area.

Truth Is Used To Vitalize A Statement Rather Than Devitalize It. Truth Implies More Than A Simple Statement Of Fact. "i Don't Have Any Whiskey," May Be A Fact But It Is Not A Truth.

The Idea Was That We Would Decide The Order When We Looked At The Proofs. I Remember Brion Gysin Saying "well, Why Change It? It's Perfect The Way It Is, The Way It Came From The Printer." Made One Major Change, That Is, The First Chapter That Came From The Printers, Which Would Be The Beginning, We Moved To The End. The First Chapter Became The Last Chapter. There's No Actual Cutups In Naked Lunch.

In Deep Sadness There Is No Place For Sentimentality.

Well, "disgusting" Doesn't Refer To The Books But To The Subjective Reaction Of The Person Making The Complaint. I Don't Think That Anything Is Disgusting Per Se. These Words "disgusting" And "filthy," Etc., Have Prevented Us From Undertaking Any Scientific Experimentation In Sexual Matters.

In Deep Sadness There Is No Place For Sentimentality. It Is As Final As The Mountains: A Fact. There It Is. When You Realize It You Cannot Complain.

If The Mortality Rate Seems High We Must Realize That Nature Is A Ruthless Teacher. There Are No Second Chances In Mother Nature's Survival Course.

The Exact Objectives Of Islam Inc. Are Obscure. Needless To Say Everyone Involved Has A Different Angle, And They All Intend To Cross Each Other Up Somewhere Along The Line.

To Concern Yourself With Surface Political Conflicts Is To Make The Mistake Of The Bull In The Ring, You Are Charging The Cloth. That Is What Politics Is For, To Teach You The Cloth. Just As The Bullfighter Teaches The Bull, Teaches Him To Follow, Obey The Cloth.

(1) Never Give Anything Away For Nothing. (2) Never Give More Than You Have To Give (always Catch The Buyer Hungry And Always Make Him Wait). (3) Always Take Everything Back If You Possibly Can.

The Most Deadly Picture Is A Picture Of Nothing At All. The Colors Are There, But There Is No Image, Nothing.

O Death Where Is Thy Sting? The Man Is Never On Time.

Beat Generation

Changes... Can Only Be Effected By Alterations In The Original. The Only Thing Not Prerecorded In A Prerecorded Universe Are The Prerecordings Themselves. The Copies Can Only Repeat Themselves Word For Word. A Virus Is A Copy. You Can Pretty It Up, Cut It Up, Scramble It - It Will Reassemble In The Same Form.

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.

Thanks For The American Dream, To Vulgarize And Falsify Until The Bare Lies Shine Through. Thanks For A Country Where Nobody's Allowed To Mind Their Own Business.

I Feel That Opiates - I Include Opium And All Its Derivatives, Such As Morphine, Heroin, Pantopon, Etc. - Are Quite Useless For Any Sort Of Creative Work, Useful Though They May Be For Routine Work. Much Of The Hard Physical Work In The Far East Is Done By Opium Addicts.

Communication Must Become Total And Conscious Before We Can Stop It.

I Had Not Taken A Bath In A Year Nor Changed My Clothes Or Removed Them Except To Stick A Needle Every Hour In The Fibrous Grey Wooden Flesh Of Heroin Addiction. I Did Absolutely Nothing.

A Junky Runs On Junk Time. When The Junk Is Cut Off, The Clock Runs Down And Stops. All He Can Do Is Hang On And Wait For Non-junky Time To Start. A Sick Junky Has No Escape From External Time, No Place To Go. He Can Only Wait.

Jesus Christ Said 'by Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them,' Not By Their Disclaimers.

They Tend To Be Suspicious, Bristly, Paranoid-type People With Huge Egos They Push Around Like Some Elephantiasis Victim With His Distended Testicles In A Wheelbarrow Terrified No Doubt That Some Skulking Ingrate Of A Clone Student Will Sneak Into His Very Brain And Steal His Genius Work.

I Took A Shot Of Morphine, Liked It, And Eventually Became Addicted. It Takes Quite A While. It Took Me Three Months The First Time. This Nonsense Of People Becoming Addicted With One Shot Is Medically Unsound.

That Old Feeling Is Still In My Leaking Heart.

In Exorcism, A Verbal Argument Can Never Do Anything. You Can't Ever Beat The Entity In A Verbal Argument Because That's What He Wants. It's Only Through A Confront, A Non-verbal Confront, That Anything Happens. It Has To Be Non-verbal.

Knowing You Might Not Make It... In That Knowledge Courage Is Born.

I Am Not A Person And I Am Not An Animal. There Is Something I Am Here For Something I Must Do Before I Can Go.

Tell The Truth Once And For All And Shut Up Forever.

Telling The Truth

Sexual Arousal Results From The Repetition And Impact Of Image.

If All Individuals Were Conditioned To Machine Efficiency In The Performance Of Their Duties There Would Have To Be At Least One Person Outside The Machine To Give The Necessary Orders; If The Machine Absorbed Or Eliminated All Those Outside The Machine, The Machine Will Slow Down And Stop Forever.

Mr. Bradley-mr. Martin Is Two People Because It Is A Statement Of The Impasse Of Dualistic Universe Which He Has Created, They Have Created. I Think That Any Dualistic Universe Ends In Nova. Mr. Bradley-mr. Martin Is A Kind Of God. A God Of Stupidity, Cowardice, Ugliness.

There Is Simply No Room Left For 'freedom From The Tyranny Of Government' Since City Dwellers Depend On It For Food, Power, Water, Transportation, Protection, And Welfare. Your Right To Live Where You Want, With Companions Of Your Choosing, Under Laws To Which You Agree, Died In The Eighteenth Century With Captain Mission. Only A Miracle Or A Disaster Could Restore It.

Life Is A Vacation From Two Eternities.

Junk Is The Ideal Product... The Ultimate Merchandise. No Sales Talk Necessary. The Client Will Crawl Through A Sewer And Beg To Buy.

Humility Is Indeed Beatness, A Compulsory Virtue That No One Exhibits Unless He Has To.

I Detest Limitations Of Any Kind, And Intend To Establish My Ass Some Place Where I Am A Virgin On The Police Blotter.

I Think The Ideal Situation For A Family Is To Be Completely Incestuous.

I Think That Richard Nixon Will Go Down In History As A True Folk Hero, Who Struck A Vital Blow To The Whole Diseased Concept Of The Revered Image And Gave The American Virtue Of Irreverence And Skepticism Back To The People.

Addiction Is A Disease Of Exposure. Doctors And Nurses, For Instance, Have A High Addiction Rate.

Build A Good Name. Keep Your Name Clean. Don't Make Compromises. Don't Worry About Making A Bunch Of Money Or Being Successful. Be Concerned With Doing Good Work And Make The Right Choices And Protect Your Work. And If You Can Build A Good Name, Eventually, That Name Will Be Its Own Currency.

The Youth Rebellion [1968] Is A Worldwide Phenomenon That Has Not Been Seen Before In History. I Do Not Believe They Will Calm Down Ad Be Ad Execs At Thirty As The Establishment Would Like Us To Believe.

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’originalité, The Sterile And Assertive Ego That Imprisons Us As It Creates. Vive Le Vol-pure, Shameless, Total. We Are Not Responsible. Steal Anything In Sight.

The Study Of Thinking Machines Teaches Us More About The Brain Than We Can Learn By Introspective Methods. Western Man Is Externalizing Himself In The Form Of Gadgets.

My Relationship With Cats Has Saved Me From A Deadly And Pervasive Ignorance.

Happinessis A Byproduct Of Function. Those Who Seek Happiness For Itself Seek Victory Without War.

When People Start Talking About Their Bowel Movements, They Are Inexorable As The Processes Of Which They Speak.

Hemingway Was A Prisoner Of His Style. No One Can Talk Like The Characters In Hemingway Except The Characters In Hemingway. His Style In The Wildest Sense Finally Killed Him.

Tell Allen I Plead Guilty To Vampirism And Other Crimes Against Life. But I Love Him And Nothing Else Cancels Love.

After A Shooting Spree, They Always Want To Take The Guns Away From The People Who Didn't Do It.

Second Amendment

God Save The Queen And A Fascist Regime … A Flabby Toothless Fascism, To Be Sure. Never Go Too Far In Any Direction, Is The Basic Law On Which Limey-land Is Built. The Queen Stabilizes The Whole Sinking Shithouse And Keeps A Small Elite Of Wealth And Privilege On Top. The English Have Gone Soft In The Outhouse. England Is Like Some Stricken Beast Too Stupid To Know It Is Dead. Ingloriously Foundering In Its Own Waste Products, The Backlash And Bad Karma Of Empire

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.

My Greatest Strength Is To Have A Great Capacity To Confront Myself No Matter How Unpleasant. My Greatest Weakness Is That I Don't. I Know That's Enigmatic, But That's Sort Of A General Formula For Anyone, Actually.

Language Is A Virus From Outer Space.

He Who Has Learned To Do Nothing With His Whole Mind And Body Will Have Everything Done For Him.

I Certainly Wouldn't Advocate Anyone Using Drugs On A Regular Or Habitual Basis.

I Miss You So Much Your Absence Causes Me, At Times, Accute Pain. I Don't Mean Sexually. I Mean In Connection With My Writing.

Revolution In America Begins In Books And Music, Then Waits For Political Operatives To 'implement Changes After The Fact.'

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.

Ever See A Hot Shot Hit, Kid? I Saw The Gimp Catch One In Philly. We Rigged His Room With A One-way Whorehouse Mirror And Charged A Sawski To Watch It. He Never Got The Needle Out Of His Arm. They Don't If The Shot Is Right. That's The Way They Find Them, Dropper Full Of Clotted Blood Hanging Out Of A Blue Arm. The Look In His Eyes When It Hit --- Kid, It Was Tasty.

The World Wasn't A More Tolerant Place When I Was A Young Man. Rather, They Simply Sidestepped All The Issues.

Gentle Reader, The Fountain Of Youth Is Radioactive, And Those Who Imbibe Its Poisonous Heavy Waters Will Suffer The Hideous Fate Of Decaying Metal. Yet Almost Without Exception, The Wretched Idiot Inhabitants Of Our Benighted Planet Would Gulp Down This Radioactive Excrement If It Were Offered.

The Face Of "evil" Is Always The Face Of Total Need. A Dope Fiend Is A Man In Total Need Of Dope. Beyond A Certain Frequency Need Knows Absolutely No Limit Or Control. In The Words Of Total Need: "wouldn't You?" Yes You Would. You Would Lie, Cheat, Inform On Your Friends, Steal, Do Anything To Satisfy Total Need. Because You Would Be In A State Of Total Sickness, Total Possession, And Not In A Position To Act In Any Other Way. Dope Fiends Are Sick People Who Cannot Act Other Than They Do. A Rabid Dog Cannot Choose But Bite.

The Idea That Anyone Can Use Drugs And Escape A Horrible Fate Is Anathema To These Idiots. I Predict In The Near Future Right-wingers Will Use Drug Hysteria As A Pretext To Set Up An International Police Apparatus.

Like All Pure Creatures, Cats Are Practical.

The Face Of Evil Is Always The Face Of Total Need.

People Have Nothing To Say, But They Are Afraid Of Saying Nothing, So What They Do Say Comes Out Flat And Vapid And Meaningless. The Shadow Of Death Is On Every Face.

Shadow Of Death

You Can't Fake Quality Any More Than You Can Fake A Good Meal.

Last Night I Encountered A Dream Cat With A Very Long Neck And A Body Like A Human Fetus, Gray And Transluscent. I Don't Know What It Needs Or How To Provide For It. Another Dream Years Ago Of A Human Child With Eyes On Stalks. It Is Very Small, But Can Walk And Talk "don't You Want Me?" Again, I Don't Know How To Care For The Child. But I Am Dedicated To Protecting And Nurturing Him At Any Cost! It Is The Function Of The Guardian To Protect Hybrids And Mutants In The Vulnerable Stage Of Infancy.

There's A Boy Across The River With An Ass Like A Peach; Alas I Was No Swimmer And Lost My Clementine.

Junk Is Not, Like Alcohol Or Weed, A Means To Increased Enjoyment Of Life. Junk Is Not A Kick. It Is A Way Of Life.

Death Was In Every Sell Of His Body. He Gave Off A Faint, Greenish Steam Of Decay. Lee Imagined He Would Glow In The Dark.

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

I Know That Nature Designs That This Whole Continent, Not Merely These Thirty-six States, Shall Be, Sooner Or Later, Within The Magic Circle Of The American Union.

The Whole Point Is, I Feel The Machine Should Be Eliminated. Now That It Has Served Its Purpose Of Alerting Us To The Dangers Of Machine Control.

The Whole Drug War Is Nothing But A Pretext To Increase Police Power And Personnel, And That, Of Course, Is Dead Wrong. So Many Created Imagined Drug Offenses.

He [samuel Beckett] Is Great, A Very Great Writer. Any Modern Writer Is Bound To Be Influenced By [james] Joyce. Of Course, By Beckett As Well.

Writers, Like Elephants, Have Long, Vicious Memories. There Are Things I Wish I Could Forget.

For Any Species To Change, If They Are Unable And Are Unwilling To Do So - I Might, For Example, Have Suggested To The Dinosaurs That Heavy Armor And Great Size Was A Sinking Ship, And That They Do Well To Convert To Mammal Facilities - It Would Not Lie In My Power Or Desire To Reconvert A Reluctant Dinosaur.

Evidence Indicates That Cats Were First Tamed In Egypt. The Egyptians Stored Grain, Which Attracted Rodents, Which Attracted Cats. (no Evidence That Such A Thing Happened With The Mayans, Though A Number Of Wild Cats Are Native To The Area.) I Don't Think This Is Accurate. It Is Certainly Not The Whole Story. Cats Didn't Start As Mousers. Weasels And Snakes And Dogs Are More Efficient As Rodent-control Agents. I Postulate That Cats Started As Psychic Companions, As Familiars, And Have Never Deviated From This Function.

Faced By The Actual Practice Of Freedom, The French And American Revolutions Would Be Forced To Stand By Their Words.

Too Perfect To Be Sexually Attractive.

Love Is A Haunting Melody That I Have Never Mastered, And I Fear I Never Will.

Squatting On Old Bones And Excrement And Rusty Iron, In A White Blaze Of Heat, A Panorama Of Naked Idiots Stretches To The Horizon. Complete Silence - Their Speech Centres Are Destroyed - Except For The Crackle Of Sparks And The Popping Of Singed Flesh As They Apply Electrodes Up And Down The Spine. White Smoke Of Burning Flesh Hangs In The Motionless Air. A Group Of Children Have Tied An Idiot To A Post With Barbed Wire And Built A Fire Between His Legs And Stand Watching With Bestial Curiosity As The Flames Lick His Thighs. His Flesh Jerks In The Fire With Insect Agony.

I See Painting As An Evocative Magic, And There Must Always Be A Random Factor In Magic, One Which Must Be Constantly Changed And Renewed.

Nobody's Busting Into Your Apartment At Three In The Morning, Are They? Well, Then Don't Worry About What They're Doing In South Korea And Places Like That. It's Like The Standard Of Living. Are You Content To Achieve Your Higher Standard Of Living At The Expense Of People All Over The World Who've Got A Lower Standard Of Living? Most Americans Would Say Yes. Now We Ask The Question, Are You Content To Enjoy Your Political Freedom At The Expense Of People Who Are Less Free? I Think They Would Also Say Yes.

Americans Have A Special Horror Of Giving Up Control, Of Letting Things Happen In Their Own Way Without Interference.

Man Must Get Away From Verbal Forms To Attain The Consciousness, That Which Is There To Be Perceived At Hand.

The Nova Mob Doesn't Have Motives, As We Understand Motives. "sex Is Profoundly Distasteful To A Being Of My Mineral Origin," As A Leader Of The Nova Mob, Mr. Bradley-mr. Martin, Said On One Occasion.

You Were Given The Power To Love In Order To Use It, No Matter What Pain It May Cause You.

A Doctor Is Not Criticized For Describing The Manifestations And Symptoms Of An Illness, Even Though The Symptoms May Be Disgusting. I Feel That A Writer Has The Right To The Same Freedom In Fact, I Think That The Time Has Come For The Line Between Literature And Science, A Purely Arbitrary Line, To Be Erased.

Like Spain, I Am Bound To The Past.

He Asked If I Wouldn't Like To Live Completely Without Problems, Say In Greece Maybe, Nice Climate, Everything Provided? I Say: "when We Find Out What We Are Actually Doing And Who We Actually Are, That Is The Point Of Living...it May Be Only A Few Seconds...a Few Seconds Of Significant Actions, Out Of A Lifetime.

So Many People In The Western World Are Just Automatically Made Ill By Any Sort Of Frank Writing About Sexual Matters.

Kerouac And I Are Not Real At All. The Only Thing About A Writer Is That He Has Written, And Not His So-called Life. 'and We (will) All Die And The Stars Will Go Out, One After Another.

This Is A War Universe. War All The Time. There May Be Other Universes, But Ours Seems To Be Based On War And Games.

If, After Spending Time With A Person, You Feel As Though You've Lost A Quart Of Plasma, Avoid That Person In The Future.

For God's Sake, Keep Your Eyes Open. Notice What's Going On Around You.

Dennis Cooper, God Help Him, Is A Born Writer.

If You Build A Good Name, Eventually, That Name Will Be Its Own Currency.

Black Magic Operates Most Effectively In Preconscious, Marginal Areas. Casual Curses Are The Most Effective.

Thinking Is Not Enough. Nothing Is. There Is No Final Enough Of Wisdom, Experience — Any F...ing Thing.

Wisdom Experience

There's A Book Called Mummy And The People Actually Seem To Have Become Addicted To Mummy Dust. And Mummy Dust Was Somehow Made From People Who've Died Of The Most Loathsome Diseases. It's Too Bad That [david] Cronenberg Didn't See This Book, See I Only Saw It After The Film Was Made. It Might Have Been Of Interest To Him.

The More Absolute The Need, The More Predictable The Behavior Becomes Until It Is Mathematically Certain.

This Is A War Universe. War All The Time. That Is Its Nature. There May Be Other Universes Based On All Sorts Of Other Principles, But Ours Seems To Be Based On War And Games. All Games Are Basically Hostile. Winners And Losers. We See Them All Around Us: The Winners And The Losers. The Losers Can Oftentimes Become Winners, And The Winners Can Very Easily Become Losers.

Cat Hate Reflects An Ugly, Stupid, Loutish, Bigoted Spirit. There Can Be No Compromise With This Ugly Spirit.

The Program Of The Ruling Elite In Orwell's 1984 Was: "a Foot Stamping On A Human Face Forever!" This Is Naive And Optimistic. No Species Could Survive For Even A Generation Under Such Program. This Is Not A Program Of Eternal, Or Even Long-range Dominance. It Is Clearly An Extermination Program.

I Awoke From The Sickness At The Age Of Forty-five, Calm And Sane, And In Reasonably Good Health Except For A Weakened Liver And The Look Of Borrowed Flesh Common To All Who Survive The Sickness.

Given Certain Known Factors In An Equation And The Equation Comprising A Situation Of Absolute Need - Any Form Of Need - You Can Predict The Results. Leave A Sick Junkie In The Back Room Of A Drugstore And Only One Result Is Possible.

Tangier Is One Of The Few Places Left In The World Where, So Long As You Don't Proceed To Robbery, Violence, Or Some Form Of Crude, Antisocial Behavior, You Can Do Exactly What You Want.

In The Magical Universe There Are No Coincidences And There Are No Accidents. Nothing Happens Unless Someone Wills It To Happen

Coincidence In Life

Death Needs Time For What It Kills To Grow In.

Always Remember, There's No Point Trying To Be Faithful To The Book Because Film And Writing Are Just Two Completely Different Things. Any Film Stands On Its Own, Apart From Whether It's Based On A Novel.

Every Word Is Autobiographical, And Every Word Is Fiction.

I Don't Go Into Hysterics Or Anything, But I Look Around For Something To Smash It With. I Used To Live Out In The Country When I First Moved Here, And There Were A Lot Of Centipedes In The House, And I Set Out To Kill Them All. A Program Of Genocide. I'd Wake Up In The Middle Of The Night, And I'd Know There's A Centipede In This Room. And There Always Was. And I Couldn't Go To Sleep Until I Killed It.

When You Stop Growing You Start Dying.

Like Pregnant Women Lose Their Teeth Feeding The Stranger, Junkies Lose Their Yellow Fangs Feeding The Monkey.

It's A Tract Against Capital Punishment In The Genre Of Swift's Modest Proposal. I Was Simply Following A Formula To Its Logical Conclusion. Some People Appear To Have Understood It. The Publication Of Naked Lunch In England Practically Coincided With Their Abolition Of Capital Punishment. The Book Obviously Had A Certain Effect.

I Meant That People Will Take Anything That Gives Them A Lift, Whether It's Alcohol Or Cocaine Or The Consciousness-expanding Drugs Or Opiates. In Iran, Until Recently, They Sold Opium In Shops Legally, And They Had 3,000,000 Addicts In A Population Of 15,000,000. I Don't Believe That All Those People Were Escaping From "complexes" Or Anything Of The Sort. They Were Simply Exposed To It.

Do Not Proffer Sympathy To The Mentally Ill; It Is A Bottomless Pit. Tell Them Firmly, "i Am Not Paid To Listen To This Drivel - You Are A Terminal Fool!" Otherwise, They Make You As Crazy As They Are.

His Whole Being Radiates A Pure, Wild Sweetness, Flitting Through Night Woods With Little Melodious Cries, On Some Cryptic Errand. There Is Also An Aura Of Doom And Sadness About This Trusting Little Creature. He Has Been Abandoned Many Times Over The Centuries, Left To Die In Cold City Alleys, In Hot Noon Vacant Lots, Pottery Shards, Nettles, Crumbled Mud Walls. Many Times He Has Cried For Help In Vain.

I Was Thinking About New Mexico, And I Rounded The Corner In New York, And There Was A New Mexico License Plate: "new Mexico, Land Of Enchantment."

I Bear My Burden Proudly For All To See, To Conquer Prejudice And Ignorance And Hate With Knowledge And Sincerity And Love. Whenever You Are Threatened By A Hostile Presence, You Emit A Thick Cloud Of Love Like An Octopus Squirts Out Ink.

I Know This One Pusher Walks Around Humming A Tune And Everybody He Passes Takes It Up. He Is So Grey And Spectral And Anonymous They Don't See Him And Think It Is Their Own Mind Humming The Tune.

What Does The Money Machine Eat? It Eats Youth, Spontaneity, Life, Beauty, And, Above All, It Eats Creativity. It Eats Quality And Sh*ts Quantity.

My Characters Are Quite As Real To Me As So-called Real People; Which Is One Reason Why I'm Not Subject To What Is Known As Loneliness. I Have Plenty Of Company.

The Simplest Questions Are The Most Difficult.

Finding Yourself

The Idea That Addiction Is Somehow A Psychological Illness Is, I Think, Totally Ridiculous. It's As Psychological As Malaria. It's A Matter Of Exposure. People, Generally Speaking, Will Take Any Intoxicant Or Any Drug That Gives Them A Pleasant Effect If It Is Available To Them.

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.

There Is Nothing More Provocative Than Minding Your Own Business.

Mind Your Own Business

Minding My Own Business

There Is In Fact Something Obscene And Sinister About Photography, A Desire To Imprison, To Incorporate, A Sexual Intensity Of Pursuit.

In Mexico Your Wishes Have A Dream Power. When You Want To See Someone, He Turns Up.

I Think There Are Innumerable Gods. What We On Earth Call God Is A Little Tribal God Who Has Made An Awful Mess. Certainly Forces Operating Through Human Consciousness Control Events.

Last Night I Woke Up With Someone Squeezing My Hand. It Was My Other Hand.

Quien Sabe? Not Me. The Older I Get The Less I Sabe, The Less Wisdom, Maturity And Caution I Have.

If You Talk You Always End Up With Politics, It Gets Nowhere. I Mean Man It's Strictly From The Soft Typewriter.

The Only Possible Ethic Is To Do What One Wants To Do.

One Very Important Aspect Of Art Is That It Makes People Aware Of What They Know And Don’t Know They Know... Once The Breakthrough Is Made, There Is A Permanent Expansion Of Awareness. But There Is Always A Reaction Of Rage, Of Outrage, At The First Breakthrough... So The Artist, Then, Expands Awareness. And Once The Breakthrough Is Made, This Becomes Part Of The General Awareness.

We Should Exterminate All Rational Thought.

Rational Thought

You Do An Awful Lot Of Bad Writing In Order To Do Any Good Writing. Incredibly Bad. I Think It Would Be Very Interesting To Make A Collection Of Some Of The Worst Writing By Good Writers.

There Are No Innocent Bystanders.

We Are Setting Out To Create New Worlds, New Beings, New Modes Of Consciousness.

Shooting Is My Principal Pastime.

The Dream Is A Spontaneous Happening And Therefore Dangerous To A Control System Set-up By The Non-dreamers

Never Interfere In A Girl And Boy Fight.

Intelligence And War Are Games, Perhaps The Only Meaningful Games Left. If Any Player Becomes Too Proficient, The Game Is Threatened With Termination.

For Instance, They [the Federal Narcotics Bureau ] Give Out That Marijuana Is A Harmful And Habit-forming Drug, And It Simply Isn't. They Claim That You Can Get Addicted To Opiates With One Shot, And You Can't. They Over-estimate The Physical Bad Effects, And So Forth.

There Is Nothing One Fears More Or Is More Ashamed Of Than Not Being Oneself. Yet Few People Realize Even An Approximation Of Their True Potential. Most People Must Live With Varying Degrees Of The Shame And Fear Of Not Being Fully In Control Of Themselves.

How Long Does It Take Man To Realize That He Cannot Want What He Wants? You Have To Live In Hell To See Heaven.

Admittedly, A Homosexual Can Be Conditioned To React Sexually To A Woman, Or To An Old Boot For That Matter. In Fact, Both Homo - And Heterosexual Experimental Subjects Have Been Conditioned To React Sexually To An Old Boot, And You Can Save A Lot Of Money That Way.

You Know A Real Friend? Someone You Know Will Look After Your Cat After You Are Gone.

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.

I Had The Feeling That Some Horrible Image Was Just Beyond The Field Of Vision, Moving, As I Turned My Head, So That I Never Quite Saw It.

Cheat Your Landlord If You Can -- And Must -- But Do Not Try To Shortchange The Muse.

The Essence Of White Supremacy Is This: They Are People Who Want To Keep Things As They Are. That Their Children's Children's Children Might Be A Different Color Is Something Very Alarming To Them - In Short They Are Committed To The Maintenance Of The Static Image.

Now Christianity Sounded Good At First To The Naive Convert. Love, Peace And Charity - What's Wrong With That? I'll Tell You What's Wrong - A Series Of Unprecedented Horrors Perpetrated By So-called Christians: The Inquisition, The Conquistadores, The American Indian Wars, Slavery, Hiroshima And The Present-day Bible Belt.

Forward Steps Are Made By Giving Up Old Armor Because Words Are Built Into You - In The Soft Typewriter Of The Womb You Do Not Realize The Word-armor You Carry; For Example, When You Read This Page Your Eyes Move Irresistibly From Left To Right Following The Words That You Have Been Accustomed To.

Yes, For All Of Us In The Shakespeare Squadron, Writing Is Just That: Not An Escape From Reality, But An Attempt To Change Reality.

You See, Control Can Never Be A Means To Any Practical End...it Can Never Be A Means To Anything But More Control...like Junk.

My General Theory Since 1971 Has Been That The Word Is Literally A Virus, And That It Has Not Been Recognized As Such Because It Has Achieved A State Of Relatively Stable Symbiosis With Its Human Host; That Is To Say, The Word Virus (the Other Half) Has Established Itself So Firmly As An Accepted Part Of The Human Organism That It Can Now Sneer At Gangster Viruses Like Smallpox And Turn Them In To The Pasteur Institute.

If You Weren't Surprised By Your Life You Wouldn't Be Alive. Life Is Surprise.

The Photo Collage Is A Way To Travel That Must Be Used With Skill And Precision If We Are To Arrive... The Collage As A Flexible Hieroglyph Language Of Juxtaposition: A Collage Makes A Statement.

You Know, They Ask Me If I Were On A Desert Island And I Knew Nobody Would Ever See What I Wrote, Would I Go On Writing. My Answer Is Most Emphatically Yes. I Would Go On Writing For Company. Because I'm Creating An Imaginary - It's Always Imaginary - World In Which I Would Like To Live.

The Planet Drifts To Random Insect Doom.

Whatever Happened To God's Justice? I Am Convinced That God Exist And God Is One Asshole.

I've Seen Villages In South America With No Police Whatever. Then The Cops Would Arrive, Then The Sanitary Inspectors, And Before You Know It They've Got All The Problems - Crime, Juvenile Delinquency, The Whole Works - Just Like Us.

"i Wouldn't Be In Your Position" - Old Saw. If There Is Any Political Move That I Would Advocate It Would Be An Alliance Between America And Red China, If They'd Have Us.

I Feel That The Change, The Mutation In Consciousness, Will Occur Spontaneously Once Certain Pressures Now In Operation Are Removed. I Feel That The Principal Instrument Of Monopoly And Control That Prevents Expansion Of Consciousness Is The Word Lines Controlling Thought, Feeling And Apparent Sensory Impressions Of The Human Host.

He Is A Boy Sleeping Against The Mosque Wall, Ejaculates Wet Dreaming Into A Thousand Cunts Pink And Smooth As Sea Shells.

It Is To Be Remembered That The Origin Of All The Arts-music, Painting And Writing-is Magical And Evocative; And That Magic Is Always Used To Obtain Some Definite Result.

Paranoia Is Just Having The Right Information.

A Writer Does Not Own Words Any More Than A Painter Owns Colors. So Lets Dispense With This Originality Fetish… Look, Listen And Transcribe And Forget About Being Original.

I Like The Idea Of Generalizing The Narcotic Thing By Making It Black Meat Addiction.

[jack] Kerouac Was Writing Fiction. What He Did When He Wrote About Me...he Made Me Out With Russian Countesses And Swiss Accounts And Other Things I Didn't Have Or Didn't Happen And So On.

All Abilities Are Paid For With Disabilities. Perfect Health May Entail The Heavy Toll Of Bovine Stupidity. Insight Into One Area Involves Blind Spots In Another.

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.

Naked Lunch Was From About A Thousand Pages Of Material. A Lot Of It Overflowed, Then, Into The Cut-up Trilogy Including Nova Express.

Like Most Qualities, Cuteness Is Delineated By What It Isn't. Most People Aren't Cute At All, Or If So They Quickly Outgrow Their Cuteness ... Elegance, Grace, Delicacy, Beauty, And A Lack Of Self-consciousness: A Creature Who Knows He Is Cute Soon Isn't.

Most People Don't See What's Going On Around Them. That's My Principal Message To Writers: 'for God's Sake, Keep Your Eyes Open. Notice What's Going On Around You.'

For Years I Wondered Why Dreams Are So Often Dull When Related, And This Morning I Find The Answer, Which Is Very Simple - Like Most Answers, You Have Always Known It: No Context ... Like A Stuffed Animal Set On The Floor Of A Bank.

Artists To My Mind Are The Real Architects Of Change.

I Don't Know What Falling In Love For Me Is. The Concept Of Romantic Love Arose In The Middle Ages. Now Remember, The Arabs Don't Even Have A Word For Love-that Is, A Word For Love Apart From Physical Attraction Or Sex. And This Separation Of Love And Sex Is A Western Concept, A Christian Concept. As To What Falling In Love Means, I'm Uncertain. Love, Well, It Means Simply Physical Attraction And Liking A Person At The Same Time.

Falling In Love

If You Are Asking Me What The Individual Can Do Right Now, In A Political Sense, I'd Have To Say He Can't Do All That Much. Speaking For Myself, I Am More Concerned With The Transformation Of The Individual, Which To Me Is Much More Important Than The So-called Political Revolution.

Political Revolution

The Country With A Low Birth Rate And Low Death Rate Will Be Hardest Hit - And So The Poor May Indeed Inherit The Earth, Because They're Healthier.

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.

I Do Spend A Great Deal Of Time Alone. I'm Not Very Gregarious. I Don't Like Parties And Miscellaneous Gatherings With No Particular Purpose. I Think Parties Are Largely A Mistake. The Bigger They Are The More Mistaken They Are.

Exorcism Is A Subject That Interests Me, And Books On Shamanism, I've Read Through.

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.

Many Of My Characters First Came Through To Me As Voices. That's Why I Use A Tape Recorder.

Writing Prejudicial, Off-putting Reviews Is A Precise Exercise In Applied Black Magic. The Reviewer Can Draw Free-floating Disagreeable Associations To A Book By Implying That The Book Is Completely Unimportant Without Saying Exactly Why, And Carefully Avoiding Any Clear Images That Could Capture The Reader's Full Attention.

The Consciousness-expanding Drugs - The Hallucinogens, Such As Cannabis, Mescaline, Lsd, Psylocybin - I Think Are Useful To A Writer Up To A Certain Point. That Is, They Open Psychic Areas That Would Not Otherwise Be Available To The Writer. But I Feel That Once These Areas Have Been Opened And The Writer Has Reached Them, He Is Able To Get Back There In The Future Without The Drug.

Everything Jack Says Is To Be Taken With Considerable Reserve.

Trending Author

Category