William S. Burroughs Quotes
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To be an outlaw you must first have a base in law to reject and get out of, I never had such a base. I never had a place I could call home that meant any more than a key to a house, apartment or hotel room. ... Am I alien? Alien from what exactly? Perhaps my home is my dream city, more real than my waking life precisely because it has no relation to waking life.
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I like the idea of generalizing the narcotic thing by making it black meat addiction.
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I read Mailer's Ancient Evenings with great interest because I was interested in . . . the seven souls structure, which was very helpful to me in Western Lands. And also in Place of Dead Roads. So that's Mailer.
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Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.
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Dennis Cooper, God help him, is a born writer.
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All political movements are basically anti-creative - since a political movement is a form of war.
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If after having been exposed to someone's presence you feel as if you've lost a quart of plasma, avoid that presence. You need it like you need pernicious anemia.
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There's a book called Mummy and the people actually seem to have become addicted to mummy dust. And mummy dust was somehow made from people who've died of the most loathsome diseases. It's too bad that [David] Cronenberg didn't see this book, see I only saw it after the film was made. It might have been of interest to him.
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In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality.
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Political conflicts are merely surface manifestations. If conflicts arise you may be sure that certain powers intend to keep this conflict under operation since they hope to profit from the situation.
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I am trying like Klee, to create something that will have a life of its own, that can put me in real danger, a danger which I willingly take on myself.
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You do an awful lot of bad writing in order to do any good writing. Incredibly bad. I think it would be very interesting to make a collection of some of the worst writing by good writers.
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If you weren't surprised by your life you wouldn't be alive. Life is surprise.
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If, after spending time with a person, you feel as though you've lost a quart of plasma, avoid that person in the future.
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He who has learned to do nothing with his whole mind and body will have everything done for him.
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I see no reason why the artistic world can't absolutely merge with Madison Avenue. Pop art is a move in that direction. Why can't we have advertisements with beautiful words and beautiful images?
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Always remember, there's no point trying to be faithful to the book because film and writing are just two completely different things. Any film stands on its own, apart from whether it's based on a novel.
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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.
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[Arab peoples] are stuck back thousands of years and they think they're going to get out with a TV set.
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A functioning police state needs no police.
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Many of my characters first came through to me as voices. That's why I use a tape recorder.
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The American uppermiddle-class citizen is a composite of negatives. He is largely delineated by what he is not.
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I see painting as an evocative magic, and there must always be a random factor in magic, one which must be constantly changed and renewed.
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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.