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William S. Burroughs

106 quotes

“The junk merchant doesn't sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter from a Master Addict to Dangerous Drugs", written in 1956, first published in The British Journal of Addiction, Vol. 52, No. 2 (January 1957), p. 1 and later used as footnotes in Naked Lunch
“Communication must become total and conscious before we can stop it.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) first seen 1962 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Ticket That Exploded (1962)
“1. Never give anything away for nothing. 2. Never give more than you have to (always catch the buyer hungry and always make him wait). 3. Always take back everything if you possibly can.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On drug dealing, quoted in The Daily Telegraph (1964)
“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 live.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in interview, The Paris Review (Fall 1965)
“The hallucinogens produce visionary states, sort of, but morphine and its derivatives decrease awareness of inner processes, thoughts and feelings. They are pain killers; pure and simple. They are absolutely contraindicated for creative work, and I include in the lot alcohol, morphine, barbiturates, tranquilizers — the whole spectrum of sedative drugs.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in interview, The Paris Review (Fall 1965), in response to "The visions of drugs and the visions of art don't mix?
“A paranoid man is a man who knows a little about what's going on.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Friends magazine (1970)
“Faced by the actual practice of freedom, the French and American revolutions would be forced to stand by their words.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cities of the Red Night (1981)
“There is simply no room left for 'freedom from the tyranny of government' since city dwellers depend on it for food, power, water, transportation, protection, and welfare. Your right to live where you want, with companions of your choosing, under laws to which you agree, died in the eighteenth century with Captain Mission. Only a miracle or a disaster could restore it.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cities of the Red Night (1981)
“Victimless crimes are the lifeline of the RIGHT virus. And there is a growing recognition, even in official quarters, that victimless crimes should be removed from the books or subject to minimal penalties. Those individuals who cannot or will not mind their business cling to the victimless-crime concept, equating drug use and private sexual behavior with robbery and murder. If the right to mind one's own business is recognized, the whole shit disposition is untenable and Hell hath no vociferous fury than an endangered parasite.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Place Of Dead Roads‎ (1983), p. 155
“Last night I encountered a dream cat with a very long neck and a body like a human fetus, gray and transluscent. I don't know what it needs or how to provide for it. Another dream years ago of a human child with eyes on stalks. It is very small, but can walk and talk "Don't you want me?" Again, I don't know how to care for the child. But I am dedicated to protecting and nurturing him at any cost! It is the function of the Guardian to protect hybrids and mutants in the vulnerable stage of infancy.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Cat Inside (1986)
“This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The War Universe", taped conversation, first published in Grand Street, No. 37 (1991)
“After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Grand Street, no. 37 & The War Universe (1992)
“England has the most sordid literary scene I've ever seen. They all meet in the same pub. This guy's writing a foreword for this person. They all have to give radio programs, they have to do all this just to scrape by. They're all scratching each other's backs.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Forbes (2 April 2001), p. 172
“Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller what there is. LOVE.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs (2000)
“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 build a good name, eventually, that name will be its own currency.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Recounted by Patti Smith in an Interview by Christian Lund, the Louisiana Literature festival August 24, 2012, at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
“The questions, of course, could be asked: Why did you ever try narcotics? Why did you continue using it long enough to become an addict? You become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong motivations in the other direction. Junk wins by default. I tried it as a matter of curiosity.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When you stop growing you start dying.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have learned the junk equation. Junk is not, like alcohol or weed, a means to increased enjoyment of life. Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tea heads are not like junkies. A junky hands you the money, takes his junk and cuts. But tea heads don't do things that way. They expect the peddler to light them up and sit around talking for half an hour to sell two dollars' worth of weed. If you come right to the point, they say you are a "bring down." In fact, a peddler should not come right out and say he is a peddler.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tea heads are gregarious, they are sensitive, and they are paranoiac. If you get to be known as a "drag" or a "bring down," you can't do business with them.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I can say definitely that weed is an aphrodisiac and that sex is more enjoyable under the influence of weed than without it. Anyone who has used good weed will verify this statement.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The American uppermiddle-class citizen is a composite of negatives. He is largely delineated by what he is not.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You need a good bedside manner with doctors or you will get nowhere.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I lay down and tried to sleep. When I closed my eyes I saw an Oriental face, the lips and nose eaten by disease. The disease spread, melting the face into an amoeboid mass in which the eyes floated, dull crustacean eyes. Slowly, a new face formed around the eyes. A series of faces, hieroglyphs, distorted and leading to the final place where the human road ends, where the human form can no longer contain the crustacean horror that has grown inside it.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Coke is pure kick. It lifts you straight up, a mechanical lift that starts leaving you as soon as you feel it”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A ghost in daylight on a crowded street.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A junky runs on junk time. When his junk is cut off, the clock runs down and stops. All he can do is hang on and wait for non-junk time to start. A sick junkie has no escape from external time, no place to go. He can only wait.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When people start talking about their bowel movements, they are inexorable as the processes of which they speak.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sodomy is as old as the human species.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why does an addict get a new habit so much quicker than a junk virgin, even after the addict has been clean for years? I do not accept the theory that junk is lurking in the body all that time - the spine is where it supposedly holes up - and I disagree with all psychological answers. I think the use of junk causes permanent cellular alteration. Once a junky, always a junky. You can stop using junk, but you are never off after the first habit.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Junk short-circuits sex. The drive to non-sexual sociability comes from the same place sex comes from, so when I have an H or M shooting habit I am non-sociable. If someone wants to talk, O.K. But there is no drive to get acquainted. When I come off the junk, I often run through a period of uncontrolled sociability and talk to anyone who will listen.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Junk takes everything and gives nothing but insurance against junk sickness.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Junk is an inoculation of death that keeps the body in a condition of emergency”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You sometimes wake up from a dream and think, "Thank God, I didn't really do that!" Reconstructing a period of blackout you think, "My God, did I really do that?" The line between saying and thinking is blurred. Did you say it or just think it?”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When you give up junk, you give up a way of life. I have seen junkies kick and hit the lush and wind up dead in a few years. Suicide is frequent among ex-junkies. Why does a junky quit junk of his own will? You never know the answer to that question. No conscious tabulation of the disadvantages and horrors of junk gives you the emotional drive to kick. The decision to quit junk is a cellular decision, and once you have decided to quit you cannot go back to junk permanently any more than you could stay away from it before.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Kick is seeing things from a special angle. Kick is momentary freedom from the claims of the aging, cautious, nagging, frightened flesh. Maybe I will find in yage what I was looking for in junk and weed and coke.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you wish to alter or annihilate a pyramid of numbers in a serial relation, you alter or remove the bottom number. If we wish to annihilate the junk pyramid, we must start with the bottom of the pyramid: the Addict in the Street, and stop tilting quixotically for the "higher ups" so called, all of whom are immediately replaceable. The addict in the street who must have junk to live is the one irreplaceable factor in the junk equation. When there are no more addicts to buy junk there will be no junk traffic. As long as junk need exists, someone will service it.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil doll stool pigeons, crooning over my spoon and dropper I throw away at Washington Square Station, vault a turnstile and two flights down the iron stairs, catch an uptown A train...”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Junk is surrounded by magic and taboos, curses and amulets.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was standing outside myself trying to stop those hangings with ghost fingers. . . . I am a ghost wanting what every ghost wants—a body—after the Long Time moving through odorless alleys of space where no life is only the colorless no smell of death. . . . Nobody can breathe and smell it through pink convulsions of gristle laced with crystal snot, time shit and black blood filters of flesh”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ever see a hot shot hit, kid? I saw the Gimp catch one in Philly. We rigged his room with a one-way whorehouse mirror and charged a sawski to watch it. He never got the needle out of his arm. They don't if the shot is right. That's the way they find them, dropper full of clotted blood hanging out of a blue arm. The look in his eyes when it hit --- Kid, it was tasty.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil before the settlers, before the Indians. The evil is there waiting.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well as, one judge said to the other, 'Be just and if you can't be just be arbitrary.' Regret cannot observe customary obscenities.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hustlers of the world, there is one Mark you cannot beat: The Mark Inside.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A functioning police state needs no police.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Squatting on old bones and excrement and rusty iron, in a white blaze of heat, a panorama of naked idiots stretches to the horizon. Complete silence - their speech centres are destroyed - except for the crackle of sparks and the popping of singed flesh as they apply electrodes up and down the spine. White smoke of burning flesh hangs in the motionless air. A group of children have tied an idiot to a post with barbed wire and built a fire between his legs and stand watching with bestial curiosity as the flames lick his thighs. His flesh jerks in the fire with insect agony.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The relation between an O.A. (Oblique Addict) and his R.C. (Recharge Connection) is so intense that they can only endure each other’s company for brief and infrequent intervals—I mean aside from recharge meets, when all personal contact is eclipsed by recharge process.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source