William S. Burroughs Quotes - Page 4

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

Every word is autobiographical, and every word is fiction.

The only possible ethic is to do what one wants to do.

Consider the impasse of a one-God universe. He is all-knowing and all-powerful. He can't go anywhere, since He is already everywhere. He can't do anything, since the act of doing presupposes opposition. His universe is irrevocably thermodynamic, having no friction by definition. So, He has to create friction: War, Fear, Sickness, Death, to keep his dying show on the road.

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.' Creative viewing.

If I had my way we'd sleep every night all wrapped around each other like hibernating rattlesnakes.

Now Christianity sounded good at first to the naive convert. Love, peace and charity - what's wrong with that? I'll tell you what's wrong - a series of unprecedented horrors perpetrated by so-called Christians: The Inquisition, the Conquistadores, the American Indian wars, slavery, Hiroshima and the present-day Bible Belt.

Too perfect to be sexually attractive.

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.

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.

He who has learned to do nothing with his whole mind and body will have everything done for him.

Who was I? The stranger was footsteps in the snow a long time ago.

The consciousness-expanding drugs - the hallucinogens, such as cannabis, mescaline, LSD, Psylocybin - I think are useful to a writer up to a certain point. That is, they open psychic areas that would not otherwise be available to the writer. But I feel that once these areas have been opened and the writer has reached them, he is able to get back there in the future without the drug.

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

(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.

There are no innocent bystanders.

Writers, like elephants, have long, vicious memories. There are things I wish I could forget.

Most people don't see what's going on around them. That's my principal message to writers: 'For God's sake, keep your eyes open. Notice what's going on around you.'

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

If you consider any set of data without a preconceived viewpoint, then a viewpoint will emerge from the data.

There couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks.

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.

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.

People have nothing to say, but they are afraid of saying nothing, so what they do say comes out flat and vapid and meaningless. The shadow of death is on every face.

The purpose of technology is not to confuse the brain but to serve the body.