William S. Burroughs (Writer)

Communication must become total and conscious before we can stop it.

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 any more than you can fake a good meal.

— William S. Burroughs change

A paranoid man is a man who knows a little about what's going on.

— William S. Burroughs man

There is simply no room left for 'freedom from the tyranny of government' since city dwellers depend on it for food, power, water, transportation, protection, and welfare.

— William S. Burroughs freedom

If the right to mind one's own business is recognized, the whole shit disposition is untenable and Hell hath no vociferous fury than an endangered parasite.

— William S. Burroughs mind

This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games.

— William S. Burroughs war

I awoke from The Sickness at the age of forty-five, calm and sane, and in reasonably good health except for a weakened liver and the look of borrowed flesh common to all who survive The Sickness…

— William S. Burroughs good

A ghost in daylight on a crowded street.

— William S. Burroughs light

The junk merchant doesn't sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client.

— William S. Burroughs lie

Cut word lines — Cut music lines — Smash the control images — Smash the control machine — Burn the books — Kill the priests — Kill! Kill! Kill!

— William S. Burroughs books

1. Never give anything away for nothing. 2. Never give more than you have to (always catch the buyer hungry and always make him wait). 3. Always take back everything if you possibly can.

— William S. Burroughs you

You know, they ask me if I were on a desert island and I knew nobody would ever see what I wrote, would I go on writing. My answer is most emphatically yes. I would go on writing for company. Because I'm creating an imaginary — it's always imaginary — world in which I would like to live.

— William S. Burroughs writing

The hallucinogens produce visionary states, sort of, but morphine and its derivatives decrease awareness of inner processes, thoughts and feelings. They are pain killers; pure and simple. They are absolutely contraindicated for creative work, and I include in the lot alcohol, morphine, barbiturates, tranquilizers — the whole spectrum of sedative drugs.

— William S. Burroughs war

As a young child Audrey Carsons wanted to be writers because writers were rich and famous. They lounged around Singapore and Rangoon smoking opium in a yellow pongee silk suit. They sniffed cocaine in Mayfair and they penetrated forbidden swamps with a faithful native boy and lived in the native quarter of Tangier smoking hashish and languidly caressing a pet gazelle.

— William S. Burroughs faith

Faced by the actual practice of freedom, the French and American revolutions would be forced to stand by their words.

— William S. Burroughs freedom

There is simply no room left for 'freedom from the tyranny of government' since city dwellers depend on it for food, power, water, transportation, protection, and welfare. Your right to live where you want, with companions of your choosing, under laws to which you agree, died in the eighteenth century with Captain Mission. Only a miracle or a disaster could restore it.

— William S. Burroughs freedom

You are a Shit Spotter. It's satisfying work. … We have observed that most of the trouble in the world has been caused by ten to twenty percent of folks who can't mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus. Now your virus is an obligate cellular parasite and my contention is that evil is quite literally a virus parasite occupying a certain brain area which we may term the RIGHT center. The mark of a basic shit is that he has to be right. And right here we must make a diagnostic distinction between the hard-core virus-occupied shit and a plain, ordinary, mean no-good son of a bitch. Some of these sons of bitches don't cause any trouble at all, just want to be left alone.

— William S. Burroughs work

Victimless crimes are the lifeline of the RIGHT virus. And there is a growing recognition, even in official quarters, that victimless crimes should be removed from the books or subject to minimal penalties. Those individuals who cannot or will not mind their business cling to the victimless-crime concept, equating drug use and private sexual behavior with robbery and murder. If the right to mind one's own business is recognized, the whole shit disposition is untenable and Hell hath no vociferous fury than an endangered parasite.

— William S. Burroughs life

Remember the Italian steward who put on women's clothes and so filched a seat in a lifeboat? "A cur in human shape, certainly he was born and saved to set a new standard by which to judge infamy and shame.

— William S. Burroughs life

This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.

— William S. Burroughs war

England has the most sordid literary scene I've ever seen. They all meet in the same pub. This guy's writing a foreword for this person. They all have to give radio programs, they have to do all this just to scrape by. They're all scratching each other's backs.

— William S. Burroughs writing

Now what sort of man or woman or monster would stroke a centipede I have ever seen? "And here is my good big centipede!" If such a man exists, I say kill him without more ado. He is a traitor to the human race.

— William S. Burroughs man

Grove Press, 2003, , 289 pages

— William S. Burroughs age

be just and if you can't be just, be arbitrary

— William S. Burroughs you

Hustlers of the world, there is one Mark you cannot beat: The Mark Inside.

— William S. Burroughs world

A functioning police state needs no police.

— William S. Burroughs fun

I awoke from The Sickness at the age of forty-five, calm and sane, and in reasonably good health except for a weakened liver and the look of borrowed flesh common to all who survive The Sickness... When I speak of drug addiction I do not refer to keif, marijuana or any preparation of hashish, mescaline, Banisteriopsis caapi, LSD6, Sacred Mushrooms or any other drugs of the hallucinogen group... There is no evidence that the use of any hallucinogen results in physical dependence.

— William S. Burroughs good

Our national drug is alcohol. We tend to regard the use of any other drug with special horror.

— William S. Burroughs horror

You see control can never be a means to any practical end. … Control can never be a means to anything but more control … like Junk.

— William S. Burroughs control

The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values.

— William S. Burroughs education

In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality.

— William S. Burroughs time

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.

— William S. Burroughs mind

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 hope

Gentle reader, the Fountain of Youth is radioactive, and those who imbibe its poisonous heavy waters will suffer the hideous fate of decaying metal. Yet almost without exception, the wretched idiot inhabitants of our benighted planet would gulp down this radioactive excrement if it were offered.

— William S. Burroughs men

Visual art and writing don't exist on an aesthetic hierarchy that positions one above the other, because each is capable of things the other can't do at all. Sometimes one picture is equal to 30 pages of discourse, just as there are things images are completely incapable of communicating.

— William S. Burroughs writing

After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say 'I want to see the manager.'

— William S. Burroughs man

How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity.

— William S. Burroughs hate

Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts.

— William S. Burroughs time

You must learn to exist with no religion, no country, no allies. You must learn to live alone in silence.

— William S. Burroughs religion

I wasn't exposed to art as I was growing up, and can't recall the first time I saw a work of art. However, I remember very clearly a vision I had of a little green reindeer when I was a child, and visions emanate from the same mythical area where painting resides. Whatever the reason, I immediately felt comfortable working with visual materials.

— William S. Burroughs time

No body of knowledge needs an organizational policy. Organizational policy can only impede the advancement of knowledge. There is a basic incompatibility between any organization and freedom of thought.

— William S. Burroughs knowledge

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.

— William S. Burroughs war

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

— William S. Burroughs happiness

A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on.

— William S. Burroughs

Be just and if you can't be just, be arbitrary.

— William S. Burroughs you

Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage.

— William S. Burroughs self

You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.

— William S. Burroughs good

In the U.S., you have to be a deviant or die of boredom.

— William S. Burroughs you

Changes... can only be effected by alterations in the original. The only thing not prerecorded in a prerecorded universe are the prerecordings themselves. The copies can only repeat themselves word for word. A virus is a copy. You can pretty it up, cut it up, scramble it - it will reassemble in the same form.

— William S. Burroughs universe

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

— William S. Burroughs change

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 writing

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 will

Like all pure creatures, cats are practical.

— William S. Burroughs cats

When you cut into the present the future leaks out.

— William S Burroughs future

After one look at this planet, any visitor from outer space would say ‘I want to see the manager’.

— William S Burroughs man

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