William S. Burroughs Quotes

My general theory since 1971 has been that the word is literally a virus, and that it has not been recognized as such because it has achieved a state of relatively stable symbiosis with its human host; that is to say, the word virus (the other Half) has established itself so firmly as an accepted part of the human organism that it can now sneer at gangster viruses like smallpox and turn them in to the Pasteur Institute.

William S. Burroughs

• Past
• Accepted
• Host
• Gangsters
• Smallpox

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Quotes to Explore

• We should read music in the same way that an educated adult will read a book: in silence, but imagining the sound.

  

  Zoltan Kodaly
  • Music
  • Book
  • Silence

• I liked 'Scream of the Banshee' because it was a real challenge. I thought, 'How am I going to pull off this character?' But, I also thought, 'Oh, man, I'm going to go for it.' He's got all the defects of character that an actor loves to play. So, I had a really great time.

  

  Lance Henriksen
  • Time
  • Great
  • Real

• People just decided I was an R&B artist because I'm black.

  

  Gallant
  • People
  • Black
  • Artist

• I am healthy and happy.

  

  Candice Swanepoel
  • Happy
  • Healthy

• I'm the guy that has written at great length about exactly how we should profoundly reform Social Security. If I were afraid of going after entitlements, I wouldn't have done that, I wouldn't have put Medicaid reform in this budget, I wouldn't have called for the reductions in spending, which people will scream about, but I think are necessary.

  

  Pat Toomey
  • People
  • Great
  • Done

• In so far as one denies what is, one is possessed by what is not, the compulsions, the fantasies, the terrors that flock to fill the void.

  

  Ursula K. Le Guin
  • Far
  • Void
  • Fill

• After a lifetime of losing and gaining weight, I get it. No matter how you slice it, weight loss comes down to the simple formula of calories in, calories out.

  

  Valerie Bertinelli
  • Simple
  • Loss
  • Losing

• When you're given a newspaper column, you're not being paid to sit on a fence and scratch your chin and say 'On the one hand this' and 'On the other hand that.' You're getting paid for your opinion.

  

  Carl Hiaasen
  • Hand
  • Opinion
  • Fence

• Everyone is just nicer to prettier people.

  

  Olivia Munn
  • People
  • Just
  • Everyone

• I never felt like I had a mother.

  

  Quincy Jones
  • Mother
  • Like
  • Never

• Let's have some new cliches.

  

  Samuel Goldwyn
  • Funny
  • New
  • Some

• The Fourth of July should be celebrated with big hearts.

  

  Camila Alves
  • Hearts
  • Big
  • July

• The various forms of intellectual activity which together make up the culture of an age, move for the most part from different starting-points, and by unconnected roads.

  

  Walter Pater
  • Up
  • Different
  • Together

• That's why I had to leave Hair on Broadway, because I did it for about a year, and one night I was doing the show, and I realized, well, this is not real. I told the director. He says, man, it was a killer show tonight.

  

  Barry McGuire
  • Real
  • Why
  • Night

• I'm a walking, talking enigma. We're a dying breed.

  

  Larry David
  • Walking
  • Dying
  • Talking

• One-sided national economic triumphs cannot be achieved in the increasingly interwoven global economy without precipitating calamitous consequences for everyone.

  

  Zbigniew Brzezinski
  • Without
  • Consequences

• Wit is an explosion of the compound spirit.

  

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
  • Spirit
  • Humor
  • Wit

• I have a few homes, and Los Angeles is certainly one of them.

  

  Zubin Mehta
  • Los Angeles
  • Certainly
  • Los

• The tolerance of the skeptic… accepts the most diverse and indeed the most contradictory opinions, and keeps all his suspicions for the “dogmatist.”

  

  Jean Guitton
  • Tolerance
  • Opinions
  • Diverse

• What I'm trying to do with my work is to break open things that are sealed, that are under siege.

  

  Jasmila Zbanic
  • Work
  • Trying

• Don't be upset that it takes a long, long time to find wisdom because nobody knows where wisdom can be found. It tends to break out at unexpected times like a rare virus and mostly people with compassion and understanding are susceptible to it.

  

  Alan Alda
  • People
  • Time
  • Long

• We can't keep thinking in a limited way about what cinema is. We still don't know what cinema is. Maybe cinema could only really apply to the past or the first 100 years, when people actually went to a theater to see a film, you see?

  

  Martin Scorsese
  • People
  • Thinking
  • Past

• Never carry the baggage of your past relationships on the honeymoon of your future relationships.

  

  Faraaz Kazi
  • Future
  • Past

• My general theory since 1971 has been that the word is literally a virus, and that it has not been recognized as such because it has achieved a state of relatively stable symbiosis with its human host; that is to say, the word virus (the other Half) has established itself so firmly as an accepted part of the human organism that it can now sneer at gangster viruses like smallpox and turn them in to the Pasteur Institute.

  

  William S. Burroughs
  • Past
  • Accepted
  • Host