William S. Burroughs · 214 pages
Rating: (8.8K votes)
“I began to get a feeling (...) of being the only sane man in a nut house. It doesn't make you feel superior but depressed and scared, because there is nobody you can contact.”
“All over America, people were pulling credentials out of their pockets and sticking them under someone else's nose to prove they had been somewhere or done something. And I thought someday everyone in America will suddenly jump up and say, 'I don't take any shit!' and start pushing and cursing and clawing at the man next to him.”
“Yeah," I said, "but you're an artist. You don't believe in decency and honesty and gratitude. Where shall we eat?”
“But you're an artist. You don't believe in decency and honesty and gratitude.”
“I had the feeling that all over America such stupid arguments were taking place on street corners and in bars and restaurants. All over America, people were pulling credentials out of their pockets and sticking them under someone else's nose to prove they had been somewhere or done something. And I thought someday everyone in America will suddenly jump up and say "I don't take any shit!" and start pushing and cursing and clawing at the man next to him.”
“...both of us had a lot to say, but there was no room to say it in, we were so tense and close.”
“I began to get a feeling familiar to me from my bartending days of being the only sane man in a nuthouse. It doesn't make you feel superior but depressed and scared, because there is nobody you can contact.”
“As I was walking past Tony Pastor's I saw Pat, the lesbian bouncer, throw a drunken young sailor out into the street. The sailor said, "That place is full of fucking queers." He swung at the air and nearly fell on his face, then he staggered away, muttering to himself.”
“He had a third martini. He looked at me intently and took hold of my arm. 'Look', he said. 'You're a fish in a pond. It's drying up. You have to mutate into an amphibian, but someone keeps hanging on to you and telling you to stay in the pond, everything's going to be all right.”
“–Levántate y date una ducha, cabrón.
–¿Qué pasa?
–A mí no me vengas con qué pasa. Anoche fumaste marihuana.
–Pero no era nada buena, de todos modos –dije, y me fui al baño.”
“There was something virile in her attitude toward tragedy, as though she were defying God to knock off the chip He Himself had placed on her shoulder.”
“People in bars are always claiming to be boxers, hoping thereby to ward off attack, like a black snake will vibrate its tail in leaves and try to impersonate a rattlesnake.”
“I got up the next morning with morphine hangover. I poured myself a large glass of cold milk, which is an antidote for morphine.”
“A typical modern Puritan, she was able to believe in sin without believing in God. In fact, she felt there was something soft and sinful about believing in God. She rejected such indulgence like an indecent proposal.
- William S. Burroughs, And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks”
“Have you always been so refined? Your attitude and that mouth.” He sucked air through his teeth and grimaced. “Do you kiss your Mother with it?”
I answered like the smart ass he knew I was. “I did before she died. Of course, my mouth was clean back then. It took years of trial and error to blossom into the fine outstanding young woman you see before you today.”
“I tell myself it will protect me. He will protect me.”
“What had been a shared moment was private now, and always would be. Even if he were to tell the story, it would be a tale told and not the thing itself. The difference between those two was the division between life and death: a lived moment and one entombed.”
“I tried to map the cultural trends leading up to it but as I did they grew, interconnecting and weaving backwards and sideways out to everything. Next to the megalithic institutionalized shredding of people's humanity, marked by tombstone malls and scabby hills, the Styrofoam gullets and flag-waving god-chatterers casting their votes for eternal paternity on the lap rapists - next to all of that, the intimacy between a terrorist and his target was almost a beautiful thing but I still couldn't solve that moment when they did it anyway so I grabbed more paper and widened my field of vision.”
“Hathin stared out across the water and deliberately let her eyes unfocus slightly. It did no good lodging your gaze on the waves as they slid and fractured. The trick was to see nothing and everything, until you started to notice any tear or break in the rhythms of the water.”
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