Whether you sniff it smoke it eat it or shove it up your ass the result is the same: addiction.
Interpretation
This quote expresses that regardless of the method of consumption, addiction ultimately leads to the same negative consequences.
William S. Burroughs highlights the pervasive nature of addiction, suggesting that no matter how one engages with a substance—be it through smoking, eating, or other means—the fundamental outcome remains unchanged: a state of addiction. This stark statement reflects the idea that addiction is an all-encompassing issue that overrides the specifics of how substances are consumed, emphasizing the serious and often detrimental effects of dependency.
In practice
In a discussion about drug addiction at a community meeting.
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
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.
There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.
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.
Language is a virus from outer space.
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.
The urge for destruction is also a creative urge!
Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?
If you want to feel connected to your own purpose, know this for certain: Your purpose will only be found in service to others, and in being connected to the something far greater than your mind/body/ego.
The tourist transports his own values and demands to his destinations and implants them like an infectious disease, decimating whatever values existed before.
An answer is always a form of death.
We spend our lives on the run: we get up by the clock, eat and sleep by the clock, get up again, go to work - and then we retire. And what do they give us? A bloody clock.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.