Explore Quotes by William S. Burroughs

If after having been exposed to someone's presence you feel as if you've lost a quart of plasma, avoid that presence. You need it like you need pernicious anemia.

Artists to my mind are the real architects of change.

There is no line between the 'real world' and 'world of myth and symbol.' Objects, sensations, hit with the impact of hallucination.

The only way I like to see cops given flowers is in a flower pot from a high window.

I see painting as an evocative magic, and there must always be a random factor in magic, one which must be constantly changed and renewed.

Strip your psyche to the bare bones of spontaneous process, and you give yourself one chance in a thousand to make the Pass.

There are no innocent bystanders.

I project myself out through the glasses and across the street, a ghost in the morning sunlight, torn with disembodied lust.

In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen. The dogma of science is that the will cannot possibly affect external forces, and I think that’s just ridiculous. It’s as bad as the church. My viewpoint is the exact contrary of the scientific viewpoint. I believe that if you run into somebody in the street it’s for a reason.

One very important aspect of art is that it makes people aware of what they know and don’t know they know... Once the breakthrough is made, there is a permanent expansion of awareness. But there is always a reaction of rage, of outrage, at the first breakthrough... So the artist, then, expands awareness. And once the breakthrough is made, this becomes part of the general awareness.

You do an awful lot of bad writing in order to do any good writing. Incredibly bad. I think it would be very interesting to make a collection of some of the worst writing by good writers.

All writing is in fact cut-ups. A collage of words read heard overheard. What else?

If the mortality rate seems high we must realize that Nature is a ruthless teacher. There are no second chances in Mother Nature's Survival Course.

Truth is used to vitalize a statement rather than devitalize it. Truth implies more than a simple statement of fact. "I don't have any whiskey," may be a fact but it is not a truth.

If you build a good name, eventually, that name will be its own currency.

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.

We must all face the fact that our leaders are certifiably insane or worse

You were given the power to love in order to use it, no matter what pain it may cause you.

Danger is a very rare commodity in these times, monopolized by intelligence agencies and _x000D_ stuntmen.

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 can build a good name, eventually, that name will be its own currency.

I awoke from The Sickness at the age of forty-five, calm and sane, and in reasonably good health except for a weakened liver and the look of borrowed flesh common to all who survive The Sickness.