Burroughs is the greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift.

Genius gives birth, talent delivers. What Rembrandt or Van Gogh saw in the night can never be seen again.

I feel guilty for being a member of the human race.

What does it mean that I am in this endless universe, thinking that I'm a man sitting under the stars on the terrace of the earth, but actually empty and awake throughout the emptiness and awakedness of everything? It means that I'm empty and awake, that I know I'm empty and awake, and that there's no difference between me and anything else.

Because in the end, you won't remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain

I ate apple pie and ice cream—it was getting better as I got deeper into Iowa, the pie bigger, the ice cream richer. There were the most beautiful bevies of girls everywhere I looked in Des Moines that afternoon—they were coming home from high school—but I had no time for thoughts like that…So I rushed past the pretty girls, and the prettiest girls in the world live in Des Moines.

Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind.