William S. Burroughs Quotes
-
All political movements are basically anti-creative - since a political movement is a form of war.
-
I like the idea of generalizing the narcotic thing by making it black meat addiction.
-
If you weren't surprised by your life you wouldn't be alive. Life is surprise.
-
Hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside.
-
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.
-
Wouldn't it be great,as Scott Peck suggests, if all medical students had to undergo the symptoms and feeling of a spectrum of illnesses. From acute infections to terminal cancer - and Kuru, the laughing sickness. Just a month for each exposure, controlled of course, and a good heavy dose of excruciating pain. So they'll know what that feels like.
-
Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.
-
In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality.
-
This is a war universe. War all the time. There may be other universes, but ours seems to be based on war and games.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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?
-
He who has learned to do nothing with his whole mind and body will have everything done for him.
-
If, after spending time with a person, you feel as though you've lost a quart of plasma, avoid that person in the future.
-
I started to write in about 1950; I was thirty-five at the time; there didn't seem to be any strong motivation. I simply was endeavoring to put down in a more or less straightforward journalistic style something about my experiences with addiction and addicts.
-
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.
-
Dennis Cooper, God help him, is a born writer.
-
Many of my characters first came through to me as voices. That's why I use a tape recorder.
-
The American uppermiddle-class citizen is a composite of negatives. He is largely delineated by what he is not.
-
[Arab peoples] are stuck back thousands of years and they think they're going to get out with a TV set.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Tell the truth once and for all and shut up forever.