“Writers, like elephants, have long, vicious memories. There are things I wish I could forget.”
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Famous William S. Burroughs Quotes
“There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.”
Source: The Place of Dead Roads: A Novel
Source: My Education: A Book of Dreams
“as soon as you know you are in prison, you have a possibility to escape.”
Source: My Education: A Book of Dreams
“Dream long enough and dream hard enough you will come to know dreaming can make it so.”
“That old feeling is still in my leaking heart.”
Source: Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs
Source: Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs
“Too perfect to be sexually attractive.”
Source: Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs
“You know a real friend? Someone you know will look after your cat after you are gone.”
Source: Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs
“Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.”
Source: Naked Lunch: The Restored Text
“After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say 'I want to see the manager.'”
Source: The Adding Machine: Selected Essays
Source: The Western Lands
“A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on.”
“Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.”
Source: The Job: Interviews with William S. Burroughs
“How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity.”
“Happinessis a byproduct of function. Those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war.”
Source: The Adding Machine: Selected Essays
“Our national drug is alcohol. We tend to regard the use of any other drug with special horror.”
“Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage.”
“A functioning police state needs no police.”
Source: Naked lunch
“I am getting so far out one day I won't come back at all.”
Source: Letters to Allen Ginsberg, 1953-1957
“There couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks.”
“Nothing is true, everything is permitted.”
Source: Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader
Source: Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader
Source: Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader
“Anything that can be done chemically can be done by other means.”
“Hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside.”
Source: Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader
“The face of evil is always the face of total need.”
Source: Naked Lunch: The Restored Text
Source: The Adding Machine: Selected Essays
“No one owns life, but anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death.”
Source: Jack Kerouac
Source: The Western Lands
“Be just and if you can't be just, be arbitrary.”
Source: Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader
“Like all pure creatures, cats are practical.”
Source: Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader
“My relationship with cats has saved me from a deadly and pervasive ignorance.”
“You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.”
Source: The Western Lands
Source: The Adding Machine: Selected Essays
Source: The Place of Dead Roads: A Novel