I Hadn't Thought That I Was Generally

Burroughs's Voice Is Hard, Derisive, Inventive, Free, Funny, Serious, Poetic, Indelibly American.

Was There Ever In Anyone's Life Span A Point Free In Time, Devoid Of Memory, A Night When Choice Was Any More Than The Sum Of All The Choices Gone Before?

People With Self-respect Exhibit A Certain Toughness, A Kind Of Moral Nerve; They Display What Was Once Called *character,* A Quality Which, Although Approved In The Abstract, Sometimes Loses Ground To The Other, More Instantly Negotiable Virtues.... Character--the Willingness To Accept Responsibility For One's Own Life--is The Source From Which Self-respect Springs.

Many People I Know In Los Angeles Believe That The Sixties Ended Abruptly On August 9, 1969, Ended At The Exact Moment When Word Of The Murders On Cielo Drive Traveled Like Brushfire Through The Community, And In A Sense This Is True. The Tension Broke That Day. The Paranoia Was Fulfilled.

This Book Is Called "blue Nights" Because At The Time I Began It I Found My Mind Turning Increasingly To Illness, To The End Of Promise, The Dwindling Of The Days,the Inevitability Of The Fading, The Dying Of The Brightness. Blue Nights Are The Opposite Of The Dying Of The Brightness, But They Are Also Its Warning.