William S. Burroughs

"Nobody owns life, but anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death."

"I knew that I no longer wanted to take junk. If I could have made one decision, it would have been no more junk, ever, but when it came to the process of quitting I did not have the drive. It gave me a terrible feeling of helplessness to watch myself break every schedule I set up, as though I did not have control over my actions."

"No body of knowledge needs an organizational policy. Organizational policy can only impede the advancement of knowledge. There is a basic incompatibility between any organization and freedom of thought."

"The price an artist pays for doing what he wants is that he has to do it."

"The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values."

"There is no intensity of love or feeling that does not involve the risk of crippling hurt. It is a duty to take this risk, to love and feel without defense or reserve."

"And there are my cats, engaged in a ritual that goes back thousands of years, tranquilly licking themselves after the meal. Practical animals, they prefer to have others provide the food ... Some of them do. There must have been a split between the cats who accepted domestication and those who did not."

"That old feeling is still in my leaking heart."

"The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself. Of course he wants care and shelter. You don't buy love for nothing."