Burroughs called his greatest novel Naked Lunch, by which he meant it's what you see on the end of a fork. He's a writer of enormous richness whose books are a kind of attempt to blow up this cozy conspiracy, to allow us to see what's on the end of the fork . . . the truth.

I felt the pressure of imagination against the doors of my mind was so great that they were going to burst.

The car as we know it is on the way out. To a large extent, I deplore its passing, for as a basically old-fashioned machine, it enshrines a basically old-fashioned idea: freedom.

A widespread taste for pornography means that nature is alerting us to some threat of extinction.

I've never suffered from writer's block. I have plenty of ideas, sometimes too many. I've always had a strong imagination. If it dries up I'll stop and look for another career.

Nagasaki destroyed by the magic of science is the nearest man has yet approached to the realization of dreams that even during the safe immobility of sleep are accustomed to develop into nightmares of anxiety.

'What was being on the moon literally like?' [. . .] 'Being on the moon?' His tired gaze inspected the narrow street of cheap jewellery stores, with its office messengers and lottery touts, the off-duty taxi-drivers leaning against their cars. 'It was just like being here.'