Unknown
William S. Burroughs
There couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks.
William S. Burroughs
The face of evil is always the face of total need.
William S. Burroughs
So cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.
William S. Burroughs
Perhaps all pleasure is only relief.
William S. Burroughs
Our national drug is alcohol. We tend to regard the use any other drug with special horror.
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
Most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can't mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus has.
William S. Burroughs
Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.
William S. Burroughs
Language is a virus from outer space.
William S. Burroughs
I feel that any form of so called psychotherapy is strongly contraindicated for addicts. The question "Why did you start using narcotics in the first place?" should never be asked. It is quite as irrelevant to treatment as it would be to ask a malarial patient why he went to a malarial area.