WSWilliam S. Burroughs

115 collected words

William S. Burroughs

Dates not recorded

Name supplied in the contributor-provided quotation collection. Basic attribution label; identity, lifetime and quotation authenticity have not been independently verified.

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Quotations and sayings

01Undated

The best way to keep something bad from happening is to see it ahead of time... and you can't see it if you refuse to face the possibility.

William S. Burroughs / quote

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02Undated

Rock and Roll adolescent hoodlums storm the streets of all nations. They rush into the Louvre and throw acid in the Mona Lisa’s face.

William S. Burroughs / quote

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03Undated

We are the cats inside. We are the cats who cannot walk alone, and for us there is only one place.

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04Undated

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

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05Undated

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

William S. Burroughs / quote

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06Undated

The price an artist pays for doing what he wants is that he has to do it.

William S. Burroughs / quote

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07Undated

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

William S. Burroughs / quote

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08Undated

I began to get a feeling familiar to me from my bartending days of being the only sane man in a nuthouse. It doesn't make you feel superior but depressed and scared, because there is nobody you can contact.

William S. Burroughs / quote

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09Undated

Intelligence and war are games, perhaps the only meaningful games left. If any player becomes too proficient, the game is threatened with termination.

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10Undated

Jesus Christ said 'by their fruits ye shall know them,' not by their disclaimers.

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11Undated

As a young child I wanted to be a writer 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.

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12Undated

The face of "evil" is always the face of total need. A dope fiend is a man in total need of dope. Beyond a certain frequency need knows absolutely no limit or control. In the words of total need: "Wouldn't you?" Yes you would. You would lie, cheat, inform on your friends, steal, do anything to satisfy total need. Because you would be in a state of total sickness, total possession, and not in a position to act in any other way. Dope fiends are sick people who cannot act other than they do. A rabid dog cannot choose but bite.

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13Undated

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.

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14Undated

Thinking is not enough. Nothing is. There is no final enough of wisdom, experience--any fucking thing. No Holy Grail, No Final Satori, no final solution. Just conflict.

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15Undated

Language is a virus from outer space

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16Undated

The word has not been recognized as a virus because it has achieved a state of stable symbiosis with the host.

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17Undated

We intend to destroy all dogmatic verbal systems.

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18Undated

That old feeling is still in my leaking heart.

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19Undated

Paranoia is just having the right information.

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20Undated

The study of thinking machines teaches us more about the brain than we can learn by introspective methods. Western man is externalizing himself in the form of gadgets.

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21Undated

But you're an artist. You don't believe in decency and honesty and gratitude.

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22Undated

Why are we here? We're here to go!

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23Undated

Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.

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24Undated

home is where your ass is and if you want to move you move your ass the first step is learning to change homes with someone else and have someone else's ass.

William S. Burroughs / quote

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