William S. Burroughs Quotes

We must all face the fact that our leaders are certifiably insane or worse

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

After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it.

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

What does the money machine eat? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty, and, above all, it eats creativity. It eats quality and sh*ts quantity.

I think anybody incapable of changing his mind is crazy.

Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.

The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself.

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

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

Which came first the intestine or the tapeworm?

A cat's rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling blue sparks, eyes blazing and sputtering.

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.

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.

There are no innocent bystanders.

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.

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

Panic is the sudden realization that everything around you is alive.

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

If all pleasure is relief from tension, junk affords relief from the whole life process, in disconnecting the hypothalamus, which is the center of psychic energy and libido.

I'm creating an imaginary — it's always imaginary — world in which I would like to live.

Open your mind and let the pictures out

Americans have a special horror of giving up control, of letting things happen in their own way without interference.

How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity.

When you cut into the present the future leaks out.

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

I am getting so far out one day I won't come back at all.

Most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can't mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus has.

Tangier is one of the few places left in the world where, so long as you don't proceed to robbery, violence, or some form of crude, antisocial behavior, you can do exactly what you want.

There is no line between the 'real world' and 'world of myth and symbol.' Objects, sensations, hit with the impact of hallucination.

Cheat your landlord if you can -- and must -- but do not try to shortchange the Muse.

There are no innocent bystanders ... what are they doing there in the first place?

Paranoia is just having the right information.

There is no intensity of love or feeling that does not involve the risk of crippling hurt. It is a duty to take this risk, to love and feel without defense or reserve.

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

I miss you so much your absence causes me, at times, accute pain. I don't mean sexually. I mean in connection with my writing.

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

No one is ever really alone. You are part of everything alive.

I don't have any politics. I feel that as soon as politics arises, things are already in a hopeless state of deterioration.

Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative.

Thanks, for a country where nobody is allowed to mind his own business. Thanks, for a nation of finks.

There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.

How long does it take man to realize that he cannot want what he wants? You have to live in hell to see heaven.

I am not a person and I am not an animal. There is something I am here for something I must do before I can go.

Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller what there is.

Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts.

Smash the control images. Smash the control machine.

in the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen

Black magic operates most effectively in preconscious, marginal areas. Casual curses are the most effective.

Artists to my mind are the real architects of change.