M.attie favourite quotes (page 9) | Quotes of famous people

“You become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong motivations in the other direction. Junk wins by default.”

William S. Burroughs book Junkie

Prologue
Junkie (1953)
Context: 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 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.”

William S. Burroughs book Junkie

Prologue
Junkie (1953)

“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.”

William S. Burroughs book The Cat Inside

The Cat Inside (1986)
Context: 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.

“When you give up junk, you give up a way of life.”

William S. Burroughs book Junkie

Junkie (1953)
Context: When you give up junk, you give up a way of life. I have seen junkies kick and hit the lush and wind up dead in a few years. Suicide is frequent among ex-junkies. Why does a junky quit junk of his own will? You never know the answer to that question. No conscious tabulation of the disadvantages and horrors of junk gives you the emotional drive to kick. The decision to quit junk is a cellular decision, and once you have decided to quit you cannot go back to junk permanently any more than you could stay away from it before.

“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.”

William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer

Quoted in interview, The Paris Review (Fall 1965), in response to "The visions of drugs and the visions of art don't mix?"

“Books are a narcotic.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

“The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Capricorn

A fragment of Miller's unfinished book on D. H. Lawrence, originally published in the London literary journal Purpose.
Source: Tropic of Capricorn (1939) "Creative Death", p. 2

“All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

“To be joyous is to be a madman in a world of sad ghosts.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

“Let me be, was all I wanted. Be what I am, no matter how I am.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Source: Stand Still Like the Hummingbird

“Do anything, but let it produce joy. Do anything, but let it yield ecstasy.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer

Source: Tropic of Cancer

“I have found God, but he is insufficient.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer

Source: Tropic of Cancer

“Serenity is when you get above all this, when it doesn't matter what they think, say or want, but when you do as you are, and see God and Devil as one.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

“I am a free man-and I need my freedom. I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion. I need sunshine and paving tones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself with only the music of my heart for company. What do you want of me? When I have something to say, I put it in print. When I have something to give, I give it. Your prying curiosity turns my stomach! Your compliments humiliate me. Your tea poisons me! I owe nothing to anyone, I would've responsible to God alone-if he exited!”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer

Source: Tropic of Cancer (1934), Chapter Four, Pappin

“Take a good look at me. Now tell me, do you think I'm the sort of fellow who gives a fuck what happens once he's dead?”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Capricorn

Source: Tropic of Capricorn (1939) New York: Grove Press, 1961, p. 313

“If we have not found heaven within, it is a certainty we will not find it without.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

The Books in My Life (1952) Chapter 11: The Story of My Heart (2nd edition. New York: New Directions Publishing, 1969, p. 192)

“Through it all I learned the value of being humble to the dust, reduced to ashes. Everyone should experience that. Before you can recognize you're somebody, you have to know you're nobody. [-] The butterfly was just a lowly worm in its beginning. The worm didn't live with the moment-to-moment expectation of sprouting wings and taking flight. He lived a useful and productive life, the life of a worm. And he had to die a worm in order to be born as an angel! The spinning of the cocoon is, in and of itself, remarkable. It is as wondrous as the emergence and first flight of the butterfly.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Reflections (1981)

“The Happiest peoples, it is said, are those which have no history. Those who have a history, those who have made history seem only to have emphazied through their acomplishments the eternality of struggle. These disappear too eventually, just as those who made no effort, who were content to merely live & enjoy.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Source: Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

“I am glad to be a maggot in the corpse which is the world.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

“The new always carries with it the sense of violation, of sacrilege. What is dead is sacred; what is new, that is, different, is evil, dangerous, or subversive.”

Henry Miller book The Air-Conditioned Nightmare

With Edgar Varèse in the Gobi Desert http://books.google.com/books?id=jAEY3Kbnj3oC&q="The+new+always+carries+with+it+the+sense+of+violation+of+sacrilege+What+is+dead+is+sacred+what+is+new+that+is+different+is+evil+dangerous+or+subversive"&pg=PA172#v=onepage, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (1945)