William S. Burroughs Quotes

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

The junk merchant wants to sell you stuff. The junk artist wants to sell you his life.

Language is a virus from outer space.

You see, control can never be a means to any practical end… it can never be a means to anything but more control… like junk.

Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.

A paranoid man is a man who knows a little about what’s going on.

Censorship is the height of vanity.

Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.

Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.

Existence is a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece.

The junk merchant doesn’t sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product.

Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller what there is. LOVE.

There couldn’t be a society of people who didn’t dream. They’d be dead in two weeks.

There is nothing wrong with being wracked by pain or paralyzed with fear or consumed with envy or driven by ambition, as long as you do not dwell on it.

Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.

The junk merchant doesn’t care if you’re dead from the neck up.

The junk merchant doesn’t sell dreams, he sells awakenings.

Authority has no inherent power. The power belongs to the people.

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

Laughter is a very unpleasant noise.

A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on.

An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world.

Our national drug is alcohol. We tend to regard the use any other drug with special horror.

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

You think you’re getting over it but you’re not. You never get over things. You just get used to them.

A functioning police state needs no police.

If you’re doing business with a religious c****, get it in writing.

When you stop growing you start dying.

A hexagram is a color photograph of the DNA dreamtime.

The cat who burns, Crushes and hits is often your best friend.

Certain people have a habit of messing up their lives and the lives of others around them.

The compact between religion and science is simple: science makes cures for religion’s ills, religion forgives science.

Language is to be regarded as a weapon system.

The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values.

The junk merchant doesn’t sell anything to the consumer, the consumer is sold to the junk merchant.

A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on.

Every man is potentially a genius. Preparation for that potentiality is a good work.

If I had my own way, I’d move the Earth out of its orbit and put Mars in its place.

A man is a softer woman standing upright.

Looking at the red line is being bitten by the black line.

A paranoid is a man who knows what’s going on.

The kiss originated when the first male reptile licked the first female reptile, implying in a subtle, complimentary way that she was as succulent as the small reptiles he’d been enjoying that week.

The junk merchant doesn’t sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product.

Rhymes are like the tongues in the shoes of the brain. They express the pattern differently but they travel the same territory.

Happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict; those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war.

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