William Burroughs quotes
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William Burroughs Quotes



Quotes by William Burroughs - (27 quotes)

William S. Burroughs - From the Artists category:

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

William S. Burroughs - From the Authority category:

Smash the control images. Smash the control machine. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Commerce category:

- Naked Lunch, 1959...
Junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Desperation category:

Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Earth category:

- The Soft Machine, 1961...
Just look there (another Heavy Metal Boy sank through the earth's crust and we got some good pictures...). (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Eccentricity category:

I am getting so far out one day I won't come back at all. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Education category:

The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Growth category:

Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Happiness category:

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

William S. Burroughs - From the Knowledge category:

-Toronto Star, 22 Apr. 1989
A paranoid is someone who has all the facts. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Magic category:

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. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Money category:

I'm running out of everything now. Out of veins, out of money. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Muse category:

So cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can't fake quality. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Observation category:

Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it 'creative observation.' (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Pleasure category:

Perhaps all pleasure is only relief. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Quality category:

You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Questions category:

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Recognition category:

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. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Religion category:

I think there are innumerable gods. What we on earth call God is a little tribal God who has made an awful mess. Certainly forces operating through human consciousness control events. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Sadness category:

In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Silence category:

Modern man has lost the option of silence. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Silence category:

Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Subject category:

The most deadly picture is a picture of nothing at all. The colors are there, but there is no image, nothing. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Titles category:

-Naked Lunch introduction (1959)
The title means exactly what the words say: NAKED Lunch - a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Truth category:

Nothing is true and everything is permitted. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Universe category:

In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen. (William S. Burroughs)

William S. Burroughs - From the Writing category:

In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas... a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed. (William S. Burroughs)