Quotessence
Home / Topics / Burroughs Quotes

Burroughs Quotes

Browse 53 quotes about Burroughs.

Burroughs Quotes

“I feel as though dispossessed from the semblances of some crystalline reality to which I’d grown accustomed, and to some degree, had engaged in as a participant, but to which I had, nevertheless, grown inexplicably irrelevant. But the elements of this phenomenon are now quickly dissolving from memory and being replaced by reverse-engineered Random Access actualizations of junk code/DNA consciousness, the retro-coded catalysts of rogue cellular activity. The steel meshing titters musically and in its song, I hear a forgotten tale of the Interstitial gaps that form pinpoint vortexes at which fibers (quanta, as it were) of Reason come to a standstill, like light on the edge of a Singularity. The gaps, along their ridges, seasonally infected by the incidental wildfires in the collective unconscious substrata. Heat flanks passageways down the Interstices. Wildfires cluster—spread down the base trunk Axon in a definitive roar: hitting branches, flaring out to Dendrites to give rise to this release of the very chemical seeds through which sentience is begotten. Float about the ether, gliding a gentle current, before skimming down, to a skip over the surface of a sea of deep black with glimmering waves. And then, come to a stop, still inanimate and naked before any trespass into the Field, with all its layers that serve to veil. Plunge downward into the trenches. Swim backwards, upstream, and down through these spiraling jets of bubbles. Plummet past the threshold to trace the living history of shadows back to their source virus. And acquire this sense that the viruses as a sample, all of the outlying populations withstanding: they have their own sense of self-importance, too. Their own religion. And they mine their hosts barren with the utilitarian wherewithal that can only be expected of beings with self-preservationist motives.”

RealityConsciousnessMetaphysicalDetachmentSelf PreservationSingularityEvent HorizonNeuronsVortexUtilitarianBurroughsExistentialistCollective UnconsciousWildfireSelf ImportanceQuantum RealitySurrealisticFree Verse PoetryJungianHuman ArroganceDispossessionJunk DnaDendritesParasitic SuperegoAxonsCollective Unconscious SubstrataLiving History Of ShadowsShadow VirusSource Virus
Book:Sinew of the Social Species
Create image

“Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk? His whole abdomen would move up and down, you dig, farting out the words. It was unlike anything I ever heard. Bubbly, thick, stagnant sound. A sound you could smell. This man worked for the carnival,you dig? And to start with it was like a novelty ventriloquist act. After a while, the ass started talking on its own. He would go in without anything prepared... and his ass would ad-lib and toss the gags back at him every time. Then it developed sort of teethlike... little raspy incurving hooks and started eating. He thought this was cute at first and built an act around it... but the asshole would eat its way through his pants and start talking on the street... shouting out it wanted equal rights. It would get drunk, too, and have crying jags. Nobody loved it. And it wanted to be kissed, same as any other mouth. Finally, it talked all the time, day and night. You could hear him for blocks, screaming at it to shut up... beating at it with his fists... and sticking candles up it, but... nothing did any good, and the asshole said to him... "It is you who will shut up in the end, not me... "because we don't need you around here anymore. I can talk and eat and shit." After that, he began waking up in the morning with transparentjelly... like a tadpole's tail all over his mouth. He would tear it off his mouth and the pieces would stick to his hands... like burning gasoline jelly and grow there. So, finally, his mouth sealed over... and the whole head... would have amputated spontaneously except for the eyes, you dig? That's the one thing that the asshole couldn't do was see. It needed the eyes. Nerve connections were blocked... and infiltrated and atrophied. So, the brain couldn't give orders anymore. It was trapped inside the skull... sealed off. For a while, you could see... the silent, helpless suffering of the brain behind the eyes. And then finally the brain must have died... because the eyes went out... and there was no more feeling in them than a crab's eye at the end of a stalk.”

CrazyAmazingBurroughsNaked Lunch
Book:Naked Lunch: The Restored Text
Create image

“The magnificent diamond locket which hung about Tarzan's neck, had been a source of much wonderment to Jane. She pointed to it now, and Tarzan removed it and handed the pretty bauble to her. She saw that it was the work of a skilled artisan and that the diamonds were of great brilliancy and superbly set, but the cutting of them denoted that they were of a former day. She noticed too that the locket opened, and, pressing the hidden clasp, she saw the two halves spring apart to reveal in either section an ivory miniature.”

JaneBurroughsClaytonTarzanLady AliceLocketTarzan Of The Apes
Book:Tarzan of the Apes
Create image

“American naturalist John Burroughs put it, “A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.”

MenRunningResponsibilityFailingFailureResponsibleBlameTrackRunnersFear Of FailurePersonal ResponsibilityBeginningInspirational RunningMotivational RunningDoingsNaturalistTrack And FieldFailure In LifeGreat RunningInspirational RunnerBlaming OthersTrack RunningRunning TrackTrack RunnersFear Of FailingBurroughsInspirational TrackRunning Funny
Author:Jeff Olson
Create image

“What we have here is a rousing boy's adventure story, adapted from stories that Edgar Rice Burroughs cranked out for early pulp magazines. They lacked the visceral appeal of his Tarzan stories, which inspired an estimated 89 movies; amazingly, this is the first John Carter movie, but it is intended to foster a franchise and will probably succeed.”

FirstsStoriesBoysAdventureSucceedInspiredMagazinesAppealsRiceCarterAdaptedVisceralPulpBurroughs
Author:Roger Ebert
Create image

“I tell this anecdote with tongue in cheek at the start of my book William Burroughs and the Secret of Fascination, but my academic involvement with Burroughs was entirely due to my tutor at Oxford, Peter Conrad. I was discussing with him the idea of staying on to do graduate work and when I tossed the name of Burroughs into the conversation - well, he let it fall loudly onto the floor, and proceeded to cross himself as if warding off an evil spirit. Since I was very ambivalent about an academic career in any case, that decided it for me.”

IfsWellsBookIdeasSpiritFallEvilNamesSecretCareersCasesConversationCrossesDecidedTongueDuesStayingGraduatesAcademicPeterCheeksFascinationInvolvementDiscussingOxfordAnecdotesTutorAmbivalentEvil SpiritsTongue In CheekBurroughs
Author:Oliver Harris
Create image

“I wasn't trying to be an outlaw writer. I never heard of that term; somebody else made it up. But we were all outside the law: Kerouac, Miller, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kesey; I didn't have a gauge as to who was the worst outlaw. I just recognized allies: my people.”

PeopleTryingMadeLawTermHeardWorstMade ItAlliesOutlawGaugesBurroughsGinsbergGonzo Journalism
Book:Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the F
Create image

“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.”

ChildrenWantedYoungBoysRichSuitsFaithfulSmokingPetNativeYellowQuartersForbiddenCocaineSilkSingaporeYoung ChildrenSwampsOpiumBurroughsGazellesHashishTangierMayfair
Book:Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader
Create image

“Science fiction is a dialogue, a tennis match, in which the Idea is volleyed from one side of the net to the other. Ridiculous to say that someone 'stole' an idea: no, no, a thousand times no. The point is the volley, and how it's carried, and what statement is made by the answering 'statement.' In other words — if Burroughs initiates a time-gate and says it works randomly, and then Norton has time gates confounded with the Perilous Seat, the Siege Perilous of the Round Table, and locates it in a bar on a rainy night — do you see both the humor and the volley in the tennis match?”

IfsMadeIdeasNightSidesFictionThousandTablesScience FictionRoundsRidiculousBarsStatementsDialogueTennisSeatsGatesRainyInitiateSiegeBurroughsVolleyRainy Night
Author:C. J. Cherryh
Create image

“All I wanted and all Neal wanted and all anybody wanted was some kind of penetration into the heart of things where, like in a womb, we could curl up and sleep the ecstatic sleep that Burroughs was experiencing with a good big mainline shot of M. and advertising executives in NY were experiencing with twelve Scotch & Sodas in Stouffers before they made the drunkard's train to Westchester---but without hangovers.”

HeartKindMadeBigsWantedSleepShotsTrainAdvertisingExecutivesTwelveWombEcstaticCurlsHangoverScotchSodaDrunkardsPenetrationBurroughs
Author:Jack Kerouac
Create image

“For a while, the gay thing seemed like such a big deal. But now, I don't think it is. It's just a comedy-drama about people who live in the United States. It's a slice-of-life. I play a character-that's it. But I was well aware of the gay lifestyle before the show. I've been hit on in a really strong way by gay men who've tried to convert me, and a lot of my heroes are gay. William Burroughs, Lou Reed. Well, I guess Lou Reed is bi. The point is, it's 2002, gay life is no longer that shocking.”

PeopleThinkingMenWayWellsStatesPlayCharacterShowsBigsLife IsStrongUnitedDealsUnited StatesComedyHeroDramaGayLifestyleShockingBig DealMy HeroGay MenReedsSlice Of LifeBurroughsGay LifeGay Lifestyle
Author:Gale Harold
Create image

“John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities?”

HumansCharacterSpeakSpaceAnimalStudyHuman NatureFieldsHabitTransformationForestsUselessSoilAnarchyAppetiteTornSubmissionCaptivityCagedBurroughs
Book:Anarchism: Top Crime Collections
Create image