William S. Burroughs Quotes
-
There's a boy across the river with an ass like a peach; alas I was no swimmer and lost my Clementine.
-
All political movements are basically anti-creative - since a political movement is a form of war. "There's no place for impractical dreamers around here," that's what they always say. "Your writing activities will be directed, kindly stop horsing around." "As for the smoking of marijuana, it is the exploitation for the workers." Both favor alcohol and are against pot.
-
I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it. My affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over Hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits.
-
The world wasn't a more tolerant place when I was a young man. Rather, they simply sidestepped all the issues.
-
Shooting is my principal pastime.
-
Panic is the sudden realization that everything around you is alive.
-
For any species to change, if they are unable and are unwilling to do so - I might, for example, have suggested to the dinosaurs that heavy armor and great size was a sinking ship, and that they do well to convert to mammal facilities - it would not lie in my power or desire to reconvert a reluctant dinosaur.
-
I prefer cats to people, for the most part. Most people aren't cute at all, and if they are cute they very rapidly outgrow it.
-
Speaking for myself, art differs from writing in that I never know what I'm going to paint until I paint it, so it's almost like automatic writing. A writer, on the other hand, can't help but know what he's going to write, because the activity demands a degree of premeditation.
-
Humility is indeed beatness, a compulsory virtue that no one exhibits unless he has to.
-
What are Americans? We've got everything from sharecroppers to atomic physicist here, and there's certainly no uniformity in their thought processes. There's very little they have in common. In fact, Americans should we say, have less in common than any other nationality.
-
The people in power will not disappear voluntarily, giving flowers to the cops just isn't going to work. This thinking is fostered by the establishment; they like nothing better than love and nonviolence. The only way I like to see cops given flowers is in a flower pot from a high window.
-
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.
-
Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts.
-
Be just and if you can't be just, be arbitrary.
-
Addiction is a disease of exposure. Doctors and nurses, for instance, have a high addiction rate.
-
We must all face the fact that our leaders are certifiably insane or worse
-
There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.
-
Now Christianity sounded good at first to the naive convert. Love, peace and charity - what's wrong with that? I'll tell you what's wrong - a series of unprecedented horrors perpetrated by so-called Christians: The Inquisition, the Conquistadores, the American Indian wars, slavery, Hiroshima and the present-day Bible Belt.
-
You see, control can never be a means to any practical end...It can never be a means to anything but more control...like junk.
-
Junk is not, like alcohol or weed, a means to increased enjoyment of life. Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life.
-
First there was a young guy sitting in front of television in a T-shirt drinking beer with his mother, then there was an older fatter person sitting in front of television in a T-shirt drinking beer with his mother.
-
The word is now a virus.
-
To concern yourself with surface political conflicts is to make the mistake of the bull in the ring, you are charging the cloth. That is what politics is for, to teach you the cloth. Just as the bullfighter teaches the bull, teaches him to follow, obey the cloth.