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.
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHSI don’t have any politics. I feel that as soon as politics arises, things are already in a hopeless state of deterioration.
More William S. Burroughs Quotes
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You can’t fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS -
After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it.
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS -
Be just and if you can’t be just, be arbitrary.
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS -
When you cut into the present the future leaks out.
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS -
A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on.
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS -
The world is now a virus.
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS -
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.
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS -
How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity.
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS -
Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS -
Political conflicts are merely surface manifestations. If conflicts arise you may be sure that certain powers intend to keep this conflict under operation since they hope to profit from the situation.
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS -
Language is a virus from outer space.
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS -
The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself.
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS -
I began to get a feeling familiar to me from my bartending days of being the only sane man in a nuthouse. It doesn’t make you feel superior but depressed and scared, because there is nobody you can contact.
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS -
Whether you like it or not, you are committed to the human endeavor. I cannot ally myself with such a purely negative goal as avoidance of suffering. Suffering is a chance you take by the fact of being alive.
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS -
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.
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS






