William S. Burroughs and His Unabashed Love for Cats

Burroughs was an American novelist and one of the main figures in Beat Generation which was a group of authors whose literature explored and influenced American culture in the post-World War II era. Burroughs’s Naked Lunch was a seminal work, under the influence of a substance. He found love in cats what he couldn’t in human.

William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs, or his pen-name William Lee was an American novelist, short story writer, satirist, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer.

He is well known as a primary figure for Beat Generation. Although, Burroughs was not enthusiastic about the Beat movement like Ginsberg. On the contrary, he cultivated interest and love for animals like specter lemur and cats.

Evidence indicates that cats were first tamed in Egypt. The Egyptians stored grain, which attracted rodents, which attracted cats. (No evidence that such a thing happened with the Mayans, though a number of wild cats are native to the area.) I don’t think this is accurate. It is certainly not the whole story. Cats didn’t start as mousers. Weasels and snakes and dogs are more efficient as rodent-control agents. I postulate that cats started as psychic companions, as Familiars, and have never deviated from this function.”

The Cat Inside Quotes (goodreads)

The Value of Cuteness

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.”

Ten William S. Burroughs Quotes About Cats (THOUGHT CATALOG)

Cats as Psychic Companions

It’s said that cats changed his dreams. As Burroughs called his cats psychic companions, they allowed his wounded inner child come out.

Cat hate reflects an ugly, stupid, loutish, bigoted spirit.

Ten William S. Burroughs Quotes About Cats (THOUGHT CATALOG)

Who Do You Want to Be Loved?

Once Burroughs was asked by Allen Ginsberg, another main figure in the Beat Generation in their later years. Do you want to be loved? Depends… By who or by what? Burroughs answered By my cats, certainly.

His whole being radiated a pure, wild sweetness, flitting through the night woods with little melodious cries, on some cryptic errand. There is also an aura of doom and sadness about this trusting little creature. He has been abandoned many times over the centuries, left to die in cold city alleys, in hot noon vacant lots, pottery shards, nettles, crumbled mud walls. Many times he has cried for help in vain.

Ten William S. Burroughs Quotes About Cats (THOUGHT CATALOG)

Of all the ups and downs, wild stories of Burroughs’s life, the most important and the kept secret came to him last. Once he was a well-known hater for cats. He came to find love and redemption through his cats.

The Cat Inside

You can feel his simple innocence and genuine love for cats through his book The Cat Inside.

Only thing can resolve conflict is love, like I felt for Fletch and Ruski, Spooner, and Calico. Pure love. What I feel for my cats present and past. Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller what there is. LOVE.”

Ten William S. Burroughs Quotes About Cats (THOUGHT CATALOG)

Reference

The Cat Offers Itself (VICE)

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Also published on Medium.