William S. Burroughs quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from William S. Burroughs on Wise Famous Quotes.

I'm creating an imaginary - it's always imaginary - world in which I would like to live.

If the mortality rate seems high we must realize that Nature is a ruthless teacher. There are no second chances in Mother Nature's Survival Course.

We can translate word and letter into color - [Arthur] Rimbaud stated that in his color vowels, words quote "words" can be read in silent color.

I was asked: "Why did you stop writing?" I would not know any more than I would know why I started writing. Try not to be as obtuse as you are.

Sodomy is as old as the human species.

two Lesbian Agents with glazed faces of grafted penis flesh sat sipping spinal fluid through alabaster straws

Is Control controlled by its need to control? Answer: yes.

If, after spending time with a person, you feel as though you've lost a quart of plasma, avoid that person in the future.

If everyone is to be made responsible for everything they do, you must extend responsibility beyond the level of conscious intention.

Bizarre and engrossingly disturbing, Naked Lunch, finds truth in madness.

The beautiful disease and The government falls along the weed rooms flesh along the weed government ...

A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on.

I knew [Timothy] Leary, but barely knew, didn't really know Jan [Kerouac].

The dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set-up by the non-dreamers

The most deadly picture is a picture of nothing at all. The colors are there, but there is no image, nothing.

Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage.

Thou shalt not be such a shit, you don't know you are one.

Never interfere in a girl and boy fight.

Paranoia is just having the right information.

There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.

In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality. It is as final as the mountains: a fact. There it is. When you realize it you cannot complain.

The purpose of my writing is to expose and arrest Nova Criminals.

Jesus Christ said 'by their fruits ye shall know them,' not by their disclaimers.

You need a good bedside manner with doctors or you will get nowhere.

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.

How long does it take man to realize that he cannot want what he wants? You have to live in hell to see heaven.

We intend to destroy all dogmatic verbal systems.

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

And if you're doing a deal with a religious son of a bitch, get it in writing.

Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts.

But there are higher stakes than youth or Latah, games where only two players in the world know what the stakes are.

Americans have a special horror of giving up control, of letting things happen in their own way without interference.

I think the ideal situation for a family is to be completely incestuous.

Knowing you might not make it ... in that knowledge courage is born.

A phenomenon must be to some extent comprehensible to be perceived at all.

What does the money machine eat? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty, and, above all, it eats creativity. It eats quality and sh*ts quantity.

Well as, one judge said to the other, 'Be just and if you can't be just be arbitrary.' Regret cannot observe customary obscenities.

I prefer cats to people, for the most part. Most people aren't cute,
& if they are cute they rapidly outgrow it

putting on a "b" production for a fruit

Junk takes everything and gives nothing but insurance against junk sickness.

There are no innocent bystanders ...

If you consider any set of data without a preconceived viewpoint, then a viewpoint will emerge from the data.

Quien sabe? Not me. The older I get the less I sabe, the less wisdom, maturity and caution I have.

Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller what there is.

A junkie spends half his life waiting.

I am not a person and I am not an animal. There is something I am here for something I must do before I can go.

Open your mind and let the pictures out

Now my inspiration but it won't last and we'll be just a photograph - i

I don't have any politics. I feel that as soon as politics arises, things are already in a hopeless state of deterioration.

You were given the power to love in order to use it, no matter what pain it may cause you.

All political organizations tend to function like a machine, to eliminate the unpredictable factor of affect - emotion.

The boy looks into Mugwump eyes blank as obsidian mirrors, pools of black blood, glory holes in a toilet wall closing on the Last Erection.

Hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside.

The country with a low birth rate and low death rate will be hardest hit - and so the poor may indeed inherit the earth, because they're healthier.

Most serious writers refuse to make themselves available to the things that technology is doing. I've never been able to understand this sort of fear.

We are setting out to create new worlds, new beings, new modes of consciousness.

I'm an old-fashioned person, and I don't like informers.

His face with lined with suffering in which his eyes did not participate.

Happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict; those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war.

The best way to keep something bad from happening is to see it ahead of time ... and you can't see it if you refuse to face the possibility.

Whatever happened to God's justice? I am convinced that God exist and God is one asshole.

After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say 'I want to see the manager.

A coprophage calls for a plate, shits on it and eats the shit, exclaiming, Mmmm, that's my rich substance.

Intelligence and war are games, perhaps the only meaningful games left. If any player becomes too proficient, the game is threatened with termination.

Virtue is simply happiness, and happiness is a by-product of function. You are happy when you are functioning.

I like the idea of generalizing the narcotic thing by making it black meat addiction.

Too perfect to be sexually attractive.

Addiction is a disease of exposure. Doctors and nurses, for instance, have a high addiction rate.

He was a sad poison nice guy more poison than nice.

When I become death. Death is the seed from which I grow.

I project myself out through the glasses and across the street, a ghost in the morning sunlight, torn with disembodied lust.

You're both mother fuckers. She was half asleep. Her voice was matter-of-fact as if referring to actual incest.

Mohammed? Are you kidding? He was dreamed up by the Mecca Chamber of Commerce.

In this world, [of Flash and Filigree] nothing is true, and censure or outrage is simply irrelevant.

Tell Allen I plead guilty to vampirism and other crimes against life. But I love him and nothing else cancels love.

NOTHING happens by coincidence.

The American uppermiddle-class citizen is a composite of negatives. He is largely delineated by what he is not.
- pg. 41

In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen

In the U.S. you have to be a deviant or die of boredom.

Perhaps why I am so uniquely terrible is simply that I represent total Dissent. Total Dissent. T.D. 19 + 4 = 23.

Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.

Strip your psyche to the bare bones of spontaneous process, and you give yourself one chance in a thousand to make the Pass.

...subway brakes spit ozone...

Time: a landing field! Death needs time like a junkie needs junk.

I've listened to and know Allen Ginsberg music and met him a couple of times, but I don't have any strong statements to make.

Language is a virus from outer space

No one is ever really alone. You are part of everything alive.

Perhaps all pleasure is only relief.

How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity.

How far would people get in physics if discovery was described as disgusting - "Your formula is disgusting and filthy"? Not very far.

Tell the truth once and for all and shut up forever.

I think all writers write for an audience. There is no such thing as writing for yourself.

Last night I woke up with someone squeezing my hand. It was my other hand.

All writing is in fact cut-ups. A collage of words read heard overheard. What else?

He who has learned to do nothing with his whole mind and body will have everything done for him.

So many people in the Western World are just automatically made ill by any sort of frank writing about sexual matters.

I think Judge Learned Hand was a cultured, intelligent man.

As soon as you have a problem, it's insoluble. These things should never have been allowed to happen.

Danger is a very rare commodity in these times, monopolized by intelligence agencies and stuntmen.

Thinking is not enough. There is no final enough of wisdom, experience - any ... thing.