Naked Lunch

movie still from David Cronenberg Home-Page
Hank (Nicholas Campbell) See, you can't rewrite, 'cause to rewrite is to deceive and lie, and you betray your own thoughts. To rethink the flow and the rhythm, the tumbling out of the words, is a betrayal, and it's a sin, Martin, it's a sin.
Bill Lee (Peter Weller) Exterminate all rational thought. That is the conclusion I have come to.
Joan Lee is explaining the joys of injecting oneself with insecticide.

Bill Lee
What do you mean, "it's a literary high"?

Joan Lee (Judy Davis) It's a Kafka high. You feel like a bug.
Bill Lee I guess it's about time for our William Tell routine.
Hans (Robert A. Silverman) Mr. Lee is curious about the Frost couple. He would like to meet them.

Kiki (Joseph Scorsiani) I think the woman would have sex with you, Mr. Lee. The man, he only likes Interzone boys.

Bill Lee I don't want to fuck 'em, I just want to talk to 'em.

Hans You know how Americans are, Kiki. They all love to travel, and then they only want to meet other Americans and talk about how hard it is to get a decent hamburger.
Tom Frost (Ian Holm) They say you murdered your wife. Is that true?

Bill Lee Who told you that?

Tom Frost Word gets around.

Bill Lee It wasn't murder. It was an accident.

Tom Frost There are no accidents. For example, I've been killing my own wife slowly over a period of years.

Bill Lee What?

Tom Frost Well, not intentionally. I mean, on the level of conscious intention, it's insane, monstrous.

Bill Lee But you do consciously know it. You just said it. We're discussing it.

Tom Frost Not consciously. This is all happening telepathically, non-consciously.

Bill Lee What do you mean?

Tom Frost If you look carefully at my lips, you'll realize that I'm actually saying something else. I'm not actually telling you about the several ways I'm gradually murdering Joan.
Bill Lee I understood writing could be dangerous. I didn't realize the danger came from the machinery.
Bill Lee America is not a young land. It is old and dirty, evil. Before the settlers, before the Indians, the evil is there, waiting.
Tom Frost No American should find himself in a foreign land without a pistol.
Clark Nova (Peter Boretski) Just remember this. All agents defect, and all resisters sell out. That's the sad truth, Bill. And a writer? A writer lives the sad truth like anyone else. The only difference is, he files a report on it.

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