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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.

-William S. Burroughs

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Writing Prejudicial, Off-putting Reviews

William S. Burroughs

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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.

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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.

All Political Organizations Tend To Function Like A Machine, To Eliminate The Unpredictable Factor Of Affect - Emotion.

Kick Is Seeing Things From A Special Angle. Kick Is Momentary Freedom From The Claims Of The Aging, Cautious, Nagging, Fightened Flesh.

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

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.

Some Of Us Are Sixty Feet Long With A Brain The Size Of A Walnut.

Everything Jack Says Is To Be Taken With Considerable Reserve.

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 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.

The Simplest Questions Are The Most Difficult.

Finding Yourself

Like Many Nonconformist And Beat Generation Writers, William S. Burroughs Takes The Outcasts Of Society As His Theme.

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

I'm An Old-fashioned Person, And I Don't Like Informers.

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

And There Are My Cats, Engaged In A Ritual That Goes Back Thousands Of Years, Tranquilly Licking Themselves After The Meal. Practical Animals, They Prefer To Have Others Provide The Food ... Some Of Them Do. There Must Have Been A Split Between The Cats Who Accepted Domestication And Those Who Did Not.

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

The Dark Gods Of Pain Are Surfacing From The Immemorial Filth Of Time.

If I Had My Way We'd Sleep Every Night All Wrapped Around Each Other Like Hibernating Rattlesnakes.

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

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

I Read A Lot Of Books For Information, Like Doctor Books, Spy Books. . . .

Life Is A Vacation From Two Eternities, Who Wants To Waste Those Precious Years Worrying About What Happens When You Get Back To Forever?

The Purpose Of Technology Is Not To Confuse The Brain But To Serve The Body.

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

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.

I Like The Shaman Very Much, The Way He Was Crying.

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.

I Think Judge Learned Hand Was A Cultured, Intelligent Man.

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

I Am Getting So Far Out One Day I Won't Come Back At All.

The American Uppermiddle-class Citizen Is A Composite Of Negatives. He Is Largely Delineated By What He Is Not.

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.

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

I Am Trying Like Klee, To Create Something That Will Have A Life Of Its Own, That Can Put Me In Real Danger, A Danger Which I Willingly Take On Myself.

I Escaped The [southern-writer] Label Because I Didn't And Don't Write About The South.

I Think All Writers Write For An Audience. There Is No Such Thing As Writing For Yourself.

As Soon As You Have A Problem, It's Insoluble. These Things Should Never Have Been Allowed To Happen.

If Everyone Is To Be Made Responsible For Everything They Do, You Must Extend Responsibility Beyond The Level Of Conscious Intention.

A Functioning Police State Needs No Police.

Bizarre And Engrossingly Disturbing, Naked Lunch, Finds Truth In Madness.

Desperation Is The Raw Material Of Drastic Change. Only Those Who Can Leave Behind Everything They Have Ever Believed In Can Hope To Escape.

Open Your Mind And Let The Pictures Out

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.

The People In Power Will Not Disappear Voluntarily, Giving Flowers To The Cops Just Isn't Going To Work. This Thinking Is Fostered By The Establishment; They Like Nothing Better Than Love And Nonviolence. The Only Way I Like To See Cops Given Flowers Is In A Flower Pot From A High Window.

Biologically Speaking The Afro-asiatic Block Is In The Ascendancy - Always Remember That Both Negro And White Are Minority Groups - The Largest Race Is The Mongoloid Group.

Human, Allen, Is An Adjective, And Its Use As A Noun Is In Itself Regrettable.

Most Serious Writers Refuse To Make Themselves Available To The Things That Technology Is Doing. I've Never Been Able To Understand This Sort Of Fear.

Look At These Poisonous Color Maps Where Flesh Trees Grow From Human Sacrifices; Listen To These Sniggering Half-heard Words Of Tenderness And Doom From Lips Spotted With Decay

For Seven Days She Lay In Bed Looking Sullenly At The Ceiling As Though Resenting The Death She Had Cultivated For So Many Years. Like Some People Who Cannot Vomit Despite Horrible Nausea, She Lay There Unable To Die, Resisting Death As She Had Resisted Life, Frozen With Resentment Of Process And Change.

The Planet Drifts To Random Insect Doom.

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... When I Speak Of Drug Addiction I Do Not Refer To Keif, Marijuana Or Any Preparation Of Hashish, Mescaline, Banisteriopsis Caapi, Lsd6, Sacred Mushrooms Or Any Other Drugs Of The Hallucinogen Group... There Is No Evidence That The Use Of Any Hallucinogen Results In Physical Dependence.

No Atomic Physicist Has To Worry, People Will Always Want To Kill Other People On A Mass Scale. Sure, He's Got The Fridge Full Of Sausages And Spring Water.

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.

A Phenomenon Must Be To Some Extent Comprehensible To Be Perceived At All.

Modern Man Has Lost The Option Of Silence.

Perhaps All Pleasure Is Only Relief.

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

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.

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.

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

Our National Drug Is Alcohol. We Tend To Regard The Use Of Any Other Drug With Special Horror.

Funny Sarcastic

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.

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.

I Wasn't Exposed To Art As I Was Growing Up, And Can't Recall The First Time I Saw A Work Of Art. However, I Remember Very Clearly A Vision I Had Of A Little Green Reindeer When I Was A Child, And Visions Emanate From The Same Mythical Area Where Painting Resides. Whatever The Reason, I Immediately Felt Comfortable Working With Visual Materials.

If You Wish To Alter Or Annihilate A Pyramid Of Numbers In A Serial Relation, You Alter Or Remove The Bottom Number. If We Wish To Annihilate The Junk Pyramid, We Must Start With The Bottom Of The Pyramid: The Addict In The Street, And Stop Tilting Quixotically For The "higher Ups" So Called, All Of Whom Are Immediately Replaceable. The Addict In The Street Who Must Have Junk To Live Is The One Irreplaceable Factor In The Junk Equation. When There Are No More Addicts To Buy Junk There Will Be No Junk Traffic. As Long As Junk Need Exists, Someone Will Service It.

There Is No Line Between The 'real World' And 'world Of Myth And Symbol.' Objects, Sensations, Hit With The Impact Of Hallucination.

It Is Thought That The Virus Is A Degeneration From A More Complex Life Form. It May At One Time Have Been Capable Of Independent Life. Now Has Fallen To The Borderline Between Living And Dead Matter. It Can Exhibit Living Qualities Only In A Host, By Using The Life Of Another-the Renunciation Of Life Itself, A Falling Towards Inorganic, Inflexible Machine, Towards Dead Matter

Is Control Controlled By Its Need To Control? Answer: Yes.

No One Is Ever Really Alone. You Are Part Of Everything Alive.

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.

You Must Learn To Exist With No Religion, No Country, No Allies. You Must Learn To Live Alone In Silence.

A Paranoid Is Someone Who Has All The Facts.

In The Magical Universe There Are No Coincidences And There Are No Accidents. Nothing Happens Unless Someone Wills It To Happen. The Dogma Of Science Is That The Will Cannot Possibly Affect External Forces, And I Think That’s Just Ridiculous. It’s As Bad As The Church. My Viewpoint Is The Exact Contrary Of The Scientific Viewpoint. I Believe That If You Run Into Somebody In The Street It’s For A Reason.

Any Unchecked Impulse Does, Within The Human Body And Psyche, Lead To The Destruction Of The Organism.

(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.

Every Man Has Inside Himself A Parasitic Being Who Is Acting Not At All To His Advantage.

Fear Of Death Is Form Of Stasis Horrors. The Dead Weight Of Time.

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.

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.

Artists To My Mind Are The Real Architects Of Change.

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.

Dream Long Enough And Dream Hard Enough You Will Come To Know Dreaming Can Make It So.

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.

In Deep Sadness There Is No Place For Sentimentality.

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.

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

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

Consider The Impasse Of A One-god Universe. He Is All-knowing And All-powerful. He Can't Go Anywhere, Since He Is Already Everywhere. He Can't Do Anything, Since The Act Of Doing Presupposes Opposition. His Universe Is Irrevocably Thermodynamic, Having No Friction By Definition. So, He Has To Create Friction: War, Fear, Sickness, Death, To Keep His Dying Show On The Road.

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

Speaking For Myself, Art Differs From Writing In That I Never Know What I'm Going To Paint Until I Paint It, So It's Almost Like Automatic Writing. A Writer, On The Other Hand, Can't Help But Know What He's Going To Write, Because The Activity Demands A Degree Of Premeditation.

What Are Americans? We've Got Everything From Sharecroppers To Atomic Physicist Here, And There's Certainly No Uniformity In Their Thought Processes. There's Very Little They Have In Common. In Fact, Americans Should We Say, Have Less In Common Than Any Other Nationality.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

America Is Not A Young Land: It Is Old And Dirty And Evil Before The Settlers, Before The Indians. The Evil Is There Waiting.

Like All Pure Creatures, Cats Are Practical.

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.

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

It's The Little Touches That Make A Future Solid Enough To Destroy.

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.

Never Interfere In A Girl And Boy Fight.

Time: A Landing Field! Death Needs Time Like A Junkie Needs Junk.

Belief Is A Meaningless Word. What Does It Mean? I Believe Something. Okay, Now You Have Someone Who Is Hearing Voices And Believes In These Voices. It Doesn't Mean They Have Any Necessary Reality. Your Whole Concept Of Your "i" Is An Illusion. You Have To Give Something Called An "i" Before You Speak Of What The "i" Believes.

We Must All Face The Fact That Our Leaders Are Certifiably Insane Or Worse

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.

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

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.

Wouldn't It Be Great,as Scott Peck Suggests, If All Medical Students Had To Undergo The Symptoms And Feeling Of A Spectrum Of Illnesses. From Acute Infections To Terminal Cancer - And Kuru, The Laughing Sickness. Just A Month For Each Exposure, Controlled Of Course, And A Good Heavy Dose Of Excruciating Pain. So They'll Know What That Feels Like.

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.

Junk Takes Everything And Gives Nothing But Insurance Against Junk Sickness.

[political Movements] Both Favor Alcohol And Are Against Pot.

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

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.

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.

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

All Writing Is In Fact Cut-ups. A Collage Of Words Read Heard Overheard. What Else?

The Federal Narcotics Bureau Does A Grave Disservice By Disseminating A Lot Of Misinformation. Most Of What They Say Is Such Nonsense That I Didn't Believe Them About Addiction.

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 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.

The Purpose Of My Writing Is To Expose And Arrest Nova Criminals.

Scientology Is A Model Control System, A State In Fact With Its Own Courts, Police, Rewards And Penalties.

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

When You Cut Into The Present The Future Leaks Out.

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.

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

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

The Word Is Now A Virus.

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

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.

No One Owns Life, But Anyone Who Can Pick Up A Frying Pan Owns Death.

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.

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.

No Body Of Knowledge Needs An Organizational Policy. Organizational Policy Can Only Impede The Advancement Of Knowledge. There Is A Basic Incompatibility Between Any Organization And Freedom Of Thought.

According To The Legend An Evil Old Doctor, Who Called Himself God And Us Dogs, Created The First Boy In His Adolescent Image. The Boy Peopled The Garden With Male Phantoms That Rose From His Ejaculations. This Angered God, Who Was Getting On In Years. He Decided It Endangered His Position As Creator. So He Crept Upon The Boy And Anaesthetized Him And Made Eve From His Rib. Henceforth All Creation Of Beings Would Process Through Female Channels. But Some Of Adam's Phantoms Refused To Let God Near Them Under Any Pretext.

Political Conflicts Are Merely Surface Manifestations. If Conflicts Arise You May Be Sure That Certain Powers Intend To Keep This Conflict Under Operation Since They Hope To Profit From The Situation.

Time Is What Death Needs To Grow People In.

By The Flaws In The Picture The Truth Will Emerge.

"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.

As An Old Junk Pusher Told Me, 'watch Whose Money You Pick Up.'

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.

When You Get To Be My Age There Are More And More People You Have Known That You Miss. Brion [gysin], Antony Balch, Ian Summerville Are Ones I Think Of Right Away I Was Quite Close To.

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.

Nothing Happens By Coincidence.

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.

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

Madness Is Confusion Of Levels Of Fact. . . . Madness Is Not Seeing Visions But Confusing Levels.

All Political Movements Are Basically Anti-creative - Since A Political Movement Is A Form Of War. "there's No Place For Impractical Dreamers Around Here," That's What They Always Say. "your Writing Activities Will Be Directed, Kindly Stop Horsing Around." "as For The Smoking Of Marijuana, It Is The Exploitation For The Workers." Both Favor Alcohol And Are Against Pot.

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.

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.

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.

Anslinger's Reefer Madness Did Not Caution Even The Seeds Of Efficient, Intelligent, Ruthless Action ... The Same Goes For Hoover, Sniveling Nixon, The Whole Miserable, Wretchedly Evil Lot Of Them ... Not A Man Among Them Who Could Have Pulled Off A Successful Coup In A Banana Republic.

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

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

I Have No Message To Give The Politicians Of The World. They're All Completely Addicted To Promiscuous Verbalization And I'm Quite Sure They Would Not Be At All Interested In Hearing About Cut-ups And Hieroglyphics And Still Less Interested To Hear About Silence.

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

As Soon As You Know You Are In Prison, You Have A Possibility To Escape.

If All Pleasure Is Relief From Tension, Junk Affords Relief From The Whole Life Process, In Disconnecting The Hypothalamus, Which Is The Center Of Psychic Energy And Libido.

How I Hate Those Who Are Dedicated To Producing Conformity.

We Can Translate Word And Letter Into Color - [arthur] Rimbaud Stated That In His Color Vowels, Words Quote "words" Can Be Read In Silent Color.

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.

There Couldn't Be A Society Of People Who Didn't Dream. They'd Be Dead In Two Weeks.

First There Was A Young Guy Sitting In Front Of Television In A T-shirt Drinking Beer With His Mother, Then There Was An Older Fatter Person Sitting In Front Of Television In A T-shirt Drinking Beer With His Mother.

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

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.

Panic Is The Sudden Realization That Everything Around You Is Alive.

Which Came First The Intestine Or The Tapeworm?

The Cat Does Not Offer Services. The Cat Offers Itself.

If I Knew How Much You Loved Me, I Would’ve Shot You Sooner.

Anything That Can Be Done Chemically Can Be Done By Other Means.

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.

You Need A Good Bedside Manner With Doctors Or You Will Get Nowhere.

An Addict Never Stops Growing. Stupider.

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 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.

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

We Should Exterminate All Rational Thought.

Rational Thought

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.

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.

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.

Like Spain, I Am Bound To The Past.

There Is Only One Thing A Writer Can Write About: What Is In Front Of His Senses At The Moment Of Writing... I Am A Recording Instrument... I Do Not Presume To Impose "story" "plot" "continuity"... Insofar As I Succeed In Direct Recording Of Certain Areas Of Psychic Process I May Have Limited Function... I Am Not An Entertainer.

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.

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

There Are No Innocent Bystanders.

The Hallucinogens Produce Visionary States, Sort Of, But Morphine And Its Derivatives Decrease Awareness Of Inner Processes, Thoughts And Feelings. They Are Pain Killers; Pure And Simple. They Are Absolutely Contraindicated For Creative Work, And I Include In The Lot Alcohol, Morphine, Barbiturates, Tranquilizers The Whole Spectrum Of Sedative Drugs.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Kerouac Opened A Million Coffee Bars And Sold A Million Pairs Of Levis To Both Sexes. Woodstock Rises From His Pages.

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.

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.

I'm Against Capitol Punishment In All Forms, And I Have Written Many Pamphlets On This Subject In The Manner Of Swift's Modest Proposal Pamphlet Incorporated Into Naked Lunch; These Pamphlets Have Marked Naked Lunch As An Obscene Book.

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