"My general theory......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 it's human host....The Word clearly bears the single identifying feature of a virus: it's an organism with no internal function other than to replicate itself." -William S. Burroughs
All that's left now are the recordings. Listen to Burroughs in his own words:
Dr. Benway Operates.
The Heat Closing In.
The Do-Rights.
I could have been a successful bank robber, gangster, business executive, psychoanalyst, drug trafficker, explorer, bullfighter, but the conjuncture of circumstances was never there. Over the years I begin to doubt if my time will ever come. It will come, or it will not come. There is no use trying to force it. Attempts to break through have led to curbs, near disasters, warnings. I cultivate and alert passivity, as though watching and opponent for the slightest sign of weakness."
"Naked Lunch is a blueprint, a How-To Book.. Black insect lusts open into vast, other planet landscapes.... Abstract concepts, bare as algebra, narrow down to a black turd or a pair of aging cajones.. How-To extend levels of experience by opening the door at the end of a long hall.... Doors that only open in Silence.... Naked Lunch demands Silence from The Reader. Otherwise he is taking his own pulse...."
"I have learned the junk equation. 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."
"When you're sick, music is a great help. Once in Texas I kicked a habit on some weed, a pint of Paregoric, and a few Louis Armstrong records."
"The only possible ethic is to do what one wants."
"After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say "I want to see the manager."
"When you see someone who looks like the saddest man
in the world... that's him."
I remember years ago in Paris a cutup I did: "Raw peeled winds of hate and mischance blew the shot." Brion Gysin told me, "That's the shot that killed Joan."
"Junk is the ultimate merchandise. The junk merchant does not sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to the product."
"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."
"Thou has the keys of Paradise, O just, subtle, and mighty Opium! - Thomas de Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1856)
"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."
"Failure is a mystery. A man does not mesh somehow with time-place. He has savy, the ability to interpret the data collected by technicians, but he moves through the world like a ghost, never able to find the time-place and person to put anything into effect, to give it flesh in a three dimensional world."
"You can cut into Naked Lunch at any intersection point.... I have written many prefaces. They atrophy and amputate spontaneous like the little toe amputates in a West African disease confined to the Negro race and the passing blonde shows her brass ankle as a manicured toe bounces across the club terrace, retrieved and laid at her feet by her Afghan Hound...."
"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. Among primitive people they say if someone was bitten by a snake he was murdered. I believe that."
""I think all writers write for an audience. There is no such thing as writing for your self. Only they never find out who the audience is."
The Man sent his servant to the market to buy bread. Servant returned, white with fear and said: "I saw Death in the market and he made a threatening gesture."
The servant saddled his horse, gassed his car, mounted his motorcycle and rushed posthaste to Samarra. Later the Man went to the market and met Death." Why", he asked, "did you frighten my servant with a threatening gesture?"
Death answered: "It was not a threatening gesture. It was a gesture of surprise to see him here, since I have an appointment with him in Samarra."
"You become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong motivations in any
other direction. Junk wins by default."
"Narcotics have been systematically scapegoated and demonized. The idea that anyone can use drugs and escape a horrible fate is an anathema to these idiots. I predict that in the near future right-wingers will use drug hysteria as a pretext to set up an international police apparatus."