Art Quotes by William S. Burroughs

14 Art quotes by William S. Burroughs

All Art quotes William S. Burroughs’s page

William S. Burroughs delivers fourteen punchy reflections on art, each tinged with his characteristic edge. The brevity of the set makes it an accessible entry point to his avant‑garde outlook.

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Artists to my mind are the real architects of change

William S. Burroughs

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“But you're an artist. You don't believe in decency and honesty and gratitude.”

William S. Burroughs

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“The price an artist pays for doing what he wants is that he has to do it.”

William S. Burroughs

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It is to be remembered that the origin of all the arts-music, painting and writing-is magical and evocative; and that magic is…

William S. Burroughs

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

William S. Burroughs

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I see no reason why the artistic world can't absolutely merge with Madison Avenue. Pop art is a move in that direction.…

William S. Burroughs

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Speaking for myself, art differs from writing in that I never know what I'm going to paint until I paint it, so…

William S. Burroughs

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The first and most important thing an individual can do is to become an individual again, decontrol himself, train himself as to…

William S. Burroughs

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“What's with the serum?" I don't know, but it sounds ominous. We better put a telepathic direction finder on Benway. The man's…

William S. Burroughs

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Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope forother people…

William S. Burroughs

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One very important aspect of art is that it makes people aware of what they know and don’t know they know. .…

William S. Burroughs

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Visual art and writing don't exist on an aesthetic hierarchy that positions one above the other, because each is capable of things…

William S. Burroughs

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I wasn't exposed to art as I was growing up, and can't recall the first time I saw a work of art.…

William S. Burroughs

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It is to be remembered that all art is magical in origin - music, sculpture, writing, painting - and by magical I…

William S. Burroughs

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More by William S. Burroughs

“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

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“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

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

William S. Burroughs

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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

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When you stop growing you start dying.

William S. Burroughs

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Life is a cutup. And to pretend that you write or paint in a timeless vacuum is just simply . . . not .…

William S. Burroughs

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When all lies, deceit, pretense is stripped away, what remains? The truth of a painting, or a book or a man.

William S. Burroughs

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“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

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“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

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“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

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You need a good bedside manner with doctors or you will get nowhere.

William S. Burroughs

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

William S. Burroughs

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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

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[Arab peoples] are stuck back thousands of years and they think they're going to get out with a TV set.

William S. Burroughs

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“It is not the intensity but the duration of pain that breaks the will to resist.”

William S. Burroughs

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