The world wasn't a more tolerant place when I was a young man. Rather, they simply sidestepped all the issues. — William S. Burroughs Copy Share Image
When all lies, deceit, pretense is stripped away, what remains? The truth of a painting, or a book or a man. — William S. Burroughs Copy Share Image
The broken image of Man moves in minute by minute and cell by cell… Poverty, hatred, war, police-criminals, bureaucracy, insanity, all symptoms… — William S. Burroughs Copy Share Image
The study of thinking machines teaches us more about the brain than we can learn by introspective methods. Western man is externalizing… — William S. Burroughs Copy Share Image
If you talk you always end up with politics, it gets nowhere. I mean man it's strictly from the soft typewriter. — William S. Burroughs Copy Share Image
Man must get away from verbal forms to attain the consciousness, that which is there to be perceived at hand. — William S. Burroughs Copy Share Image
“How long does it take man to realize that he cannot want what he wants? You have to live in hell to… — William S. Burroughs Copy Share Image
Now what sort of man or woman or monster would stroke a centipede I have ever seen? And here is my good… — William S. Burroughs Copy Share Image
In the event of atomic war there is a tremendous biological advantage in the so-called undeveloped areas that have a high birth… — William S. Burroughs Copy Share Image
I began to get a feeling (...) of being the only sane man in a nut house. It doesn't make you feel… — William S. Burroughs Copy Share Image
Anslinger's reefer madness did not caution even the seeds of efficient, intelligent, ruthless action ... The same goes for Hoover, sniveling Nixon,… — William S. Burroughs Copy Share Image
I began to get a feeling familiar to me from my bartending days of being the only sane man in a nuthouse.… — William S. Burroughs Copy Share Image
The face of "evil" is always the face of total need. A dope fiend is a man in total need of dope.… — William S. Burroughs Copy Share Image
“Control never be a means to any practical end. It can never be a means to anything but more control… Like punk.” — William S. Burroughs Copy Share
“Well as, one judge said to the other, 'Be just and if you can't be just be arbitrary.' Regret cannot observe customary obscenities.” — William S. Burroughs Copy Share
After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say 'I want to see the manager.' — William S. Burroughs Copy Share
For seven days she lay in bed looking sullenly at the ceiling as though resenting the death she had cultivated for so many years.… — William S. Burroughs Copy Share
Life is a cutup. And to pretend that you write or paint in a timeless vacuum is just simply . . . not .… — William S. Burroughs Copy Share
When all lies, deceit, pretense is stripped away, what remains? The truth of a painting, or a book or a man. — William S. Burroughs Copy Share
“There is no final enough of wisdom, experience - any fucking thing. No Holy Grail, No Final Satori, no solution. Just conflict. Only thing… — William S. Burroughs Copy Share
“For John Dillinger In hope he is still alive Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1986 In hope he is still alive Thanks for the wild… — William S. Burroughs Copy Share
“Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk? His whole abdomen would move up and down, you dig,… — William S. Burroughs Copy Share
You need a good bedside manner with doctors or you will get nowhere. — William S. Burroughs Copy Share
There couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks. — William S. Burroughs Copy Share
I prefer cats to people, for the most part. Most people aren't cute at all, and if they are cute they very rapidly outgrow… — William S. Burroughs Copy Share
[Arab peoples] are stuck back thousands of years and they think they're going to get out with a TV set. — William S. Burroughs Copy Share
“It is not the intensity but the duration of pain that breaks the will to resist.” — William S. Burroughs Copy Share
