William S. Burroughs Zitate auf Englisch

Zitat des Tages von William S. Burroughs:

Most people don't see what's going on around them. That's my principal message to writers: 'For God's sake, keep your eyes open. Notice what's going on around you.'

Hemingway was a prisoner of his style. No one can talk like the characters in Hemingway except the characters in Hemingway. His style in the wildest sense finally killed him.

William S. Burroughs

The way to kill a man or a nation is to cut off his dreams, the way the whites are taking care of the Indians: killing their dreams, their magic, their familiar spirits.

William S. Burroughs

Like all pure creatures, cats are practical.

William S. Burroughs

How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity.

William S. Burroughs

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

William S. Burroughs

You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.

William S. Burroughs

Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative.

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

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.

William S. Burroughs

Hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside.

William S. Burroughs

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

William S. Burroughs

I am getting so far out one day I won't come back at all.

William S. Burroughs

Perhaps all pleasure is only relief.

William S. Burroughs

In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas, a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed.

William S. Burroughs

Language is a virus from outer space.

William S. Burroughs

The only possible ethic is to do what one wants to do.

William S. Burroughs

Virtue is simply happiness, and happiness is a by-product of function. You are happy when you are functioning.

William S. Burroughs

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

William S. Burroughs

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

William S. Burroughs

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

William S. Burroughs

Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

William S. Burroughs

The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself. Of course he wants care and shelter. You don't buy love for nothing.

William S. Burroughs

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

William S. Burroughs

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

William S. Burroughs

Smash the control images. Smash the control machine.

William S. Burroughs

Most people don't see what's going on around them. That's my principal message to writers: 'For God's sake, keep your eyes open. Notice what's going on around you.'

William S. Burroughs

A cat's rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling blue sparks, eyes blazing and sputtering.

William S. Burroughs

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

William S. Burroughs

Which came first the intestine or the tapeworm?

William S. Burroughs

This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games.

William S. Burroughs

Visual art and writing don't exist on an aesthetic hierarchy that positions one above the other, because each is capable of things the other can't do at all. Sometimes one picture is equal to 30 pages of discourse, just as there are things images are completely incapable of communicating.

William S. Burroughs

The world wasn't a more tolerant place when I was a young man. Rather, they simply sidestepped all the issues.

William S. Burroughs

Be just and if you can't be just, be arbitrary.

William S. Burroughs

Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.

William S. Burroughs

If everyone is to be made responsible for everything they do, you must extend responsibility beyond the level of conscious intention.

William S. Burroughs

No one owns life, but anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death.

William S. Burroughs