William S. Burroughs Quotes

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.

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

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

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

Open your mind and let the pictures out

There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.

I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. 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. My affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over Hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits.

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

Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don't make compromises. Don't worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned with doing good work and make the right choices and protect your work. And if you can build a good name, eventually, that name will be its own currency.

Do not proffer sympathy to the mentally ill; it is a bottomless pit. Tell them firmly, "I am not paid to listen to this drivel - you are a terminal fool!" Otherwise, they make you as crazy as they are.

A consumer society is about simplfying and degrading the consumer as well as the product.

Life is a vacation from two eternities, who wants to waste those precious years worrying about what happens when you get back to forever?

Piss off Satan and don't take me for dumber than I look.

When you cut into the present the future leaks out.

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.

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

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

America is not so much a nightmare as a non-dream. The American non-dream is precisely a move to wipe the dream out of existence. The dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set up by the non-dreamers.

I think anybody incapable of changing his mind is crazy.

The people in power will not disappear voluntarily, giving flowers to the cops just isn't going to work. This thinking is fostered by the establishment; they like nothing better than love and nonviolence. The only way I like to see cops given flowers is in a flower pot from a high window.

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

It is to be remembered that all art is magical in origin - music, sculpture, writing, painting - and by magical I mean intended to produce very definite results. Paintings were originally formulae to make what is painted happen. Art is not an end in itself, any more than Einstein's matter-into-energy formulae is an end in itself. Like all formulae, art was originally FUNCTIONAL, intended to make things happen, the way an atom bomb happens from Einstein's formulae.

In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen. The dogma of science is that the will cannot possibly affect external forces, and I think that’s just ridiculous. It’s as bad as the church. My viewpoint is the exact contrary of the scientific viewpoint. I believe that if you run into somebody in the street it’s for a reason.

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

Paranoia is just having the right information.