William H Burroughs Quotes

#1. Intelligence and war are games, perhaps the only meaningful games left. If any player becomes too proficient, the game is threatened with termination.

William S. Burroughs

#2. Is Control controlled by its need to control? Answer: yes.

William S. Burroughs

#3. Junk takes everything and gives nothing but insurance against junk sickness.

William S. Burroughs

#4. Mr. Bradley-Mr. Martin is two people because it is a statement of the impasse of dualistic universe which he has created, they have created. I think that any dualistic universe ends in Nova. Mr. Bradley-Mr. Martin is a kind of God. A God of stupidity, cowardice, ugliness.

William S. Burroughs

#5. The more absolute the need, the more predictable the behavior becomes until it is mathematically certain.

William S. Burroughs

#6. Naked Mr. America, burning frantic with self bone love, screams out: My asshole confounds the Louvre! I fart ambrosia and shit pure gold turds! My cock spurts soft diamonds in the morning sunlight!

William S. Burroughs

#7. Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage.

William S. Burroughs

#8. Which came first, the intestine or the tapeworm?

William S. Burroughs

#9. The unworthies in power feel danger, like cows uneasily pawing the ground with a great Moo.

William S. Burroughs

#10. Any belief in Creators or Purpose is wishful thinking. And when you point out that perhaps ALL thinking is wishful, reactions of intense irritation give evidence that we are not dealing with logic but with faith.

William S. Burroughs

#11. Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.

William S. Burroughs

#12. Scientology is a model control system, a state in fact with its own courts, police, rewards and penalties.

William S. Burroughs

#13. Humility is indeed beatness, a compulsory virtue that no one exhibits unless he has to.

William S. Burroughs

#14. Biologically speaking the Afro-Asiatic block is in the ascendancy - always remember that both Negro and White are minority groups - the largest race is the Mongoloid group.

William S. Burroughs

#15. Naked Lunch was from about a thousand pages of material. A lot of it overflowed, then, into the cut-up trilogy including Nova Express.

William S. Burroughs

#16. After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say 'I want to see the manager.

William S. Burroughs

#17. The line between inner and outer landscapes is breaking down. Earthquakes can result from seismic upheavals within the human mind. The whole random universe of the industrial age is breaking down into cryptic fragments.

William S. Burroughs

#18. Tangier is one of the few places left in the world where, so long as you don't proceed to robbery, violence, or some form of crude, antisocial behavior, you can do exactly what you want.

William S. Burroughs

#19. Mohammed? Are you kidding? He was dreamed up by the Mecca Chamber of Commerce.

William S. Burroughs

#20. Look at the immigrants coming to America looking for a better life. What they got now? If they had the misfortune to be successful one of the most gruesome cultural straightjackets in history.

William S. Burroughs

#21. Abandon all nations, the planet drifts to random insect doom.

William S. Burroughs

#22. Dream long enough and dream hard enough
you will come to know
dreaming can make it so ...

William S. Burroughs

#23. A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on.

William S. Burroughs

#24. (1) Never give anything away for nothing.
(2) Never give more than you have to give (always catch the buyer hungry and always make him wait).
(3) Always take everything back if you possibly can.

William S. Burroughs

#25. There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.

William S. Burroughs

#26. First there was a young guy sitting in front of television in a T-shirt drinking beer with his mother, then there was an older fatter person sitting in front of television in a T-shirt drinking beer with his mother.

William S. Burroughs

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

William S. Burroughs

#28. Addiction is a disease of exposure. Doctors and nurses, for instance, have a high addiction rate.

William S. Burroughs

#29. In Mexico your wishes have a dream power. When you want to see someone, he turns up.

William S. Burroughs

#30. It is not the intensity but the duration of pain that breaks the will to resist.

William S. Burroughs