A ghost in daylight on a crowded street.
Burroughs, William. Junky. 1953.
The junk merchant doesn't sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client.
Burroughs, William. Naked Lunch. 1959.
Cut word lines — Cut music lines — Smash the control images — Smash the control machine — Burn the books — Kill the priests — Kill! Kill! Kill!
Burroughs, William. The Soft Machine. 1961.
Communication must become total and conscious before we can stop it.
Burroughs, William. The Ticket That Exploded. 1962.
From symbiosis to parasitism is a short step. The word is now a virus. [...] Modern man has lost the option of silence.
Burroughs, William. The Ticket That Exploded. 1962.
1. Never give anything away for nothing. 2. Never give more than you have to (always catch the buyer hungry and always make him wait). 3. Always take back everything if you possibly can.
Burroughs, William. On drug dealing, quoted in The Daily Telegraph. 1964.
I'm creating an imaginary — it's always imaginary — world in which I would like to live.
Burroughs, William. Interview in The Paris Review. 1965.
The hallucinogens produce visionary states, sort of, but morphine and its derivatives decrease awareness of inner processes, thoughts and feelings. They are pain killers; pure and simple. They are absolutely contraindicated for creative work, and I include in the lot alcohol, morphine, barbiturates, tranquilizers — the whole spectrum of sedative drugs.
Burroughs, William. Interview in The Paris Review. 1965.
A paranoid man is a man who knows a little about what's going on.
Burroughs, William. Interview in Friend Magazine. 1970.
As a young child Audrey Carsons wanted to be writers because writers were rich and famous. They lounged around Singapore and Rangoon smoking opium in a yellow pongee silk suit. They sniffed cocaine in Mayfair and they penetrated forbidden swamps with a faithful native boy and lived in the native quarter of Tangier smoking hashish and languidly caressing a pet gazelle.
Burroughs, William. The Lemon Kid. 1979.
Faced by the actual practice of freedom, the French and American revolutions would be forced to stand by their words.
Burroughs, William. Cities of the Red Night. 1981.
There is simply no room left for 'freedom from the tyranny of government' since city dwellers depend on it for food, power, water, transportation, protection, and welfare.Your right to live where you want, with companions of your choosing, under laws to which you agree, died in the eighteenth century with Captain Mission. Only a miracle or a disaster could restore it.
Burroughs, William. Cities of the Red Night. 1981.
You are a Shit Spotter. It's satisfying work. … We have observed that most of the trouble in the world has been caused by ten to twenty percent of folks who can't mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus. Now your virus is an obligate cellular parasite and my contention is that evil is quite literally a virus parasite occupying a certain brain area which we may term the RIGHT center. The mark of a basic shit is that he has to be right. And right here we must make a diagnostic distinction between the hard-core virus-occupied shit and a plain, ordinary, mean no-good son of a bitch. Some of these sons of bitches don't cause any trouble at all, just want to be left alone.
Burroughs, William. The Place of Dead Roads. 1983.
Victimless crimes are the lifeline of the RIGHT virus. And there is a growing recognition, even in official quarters, that victimless crimes should be removed from the books or subject to minimal penalties. Those individuals who cannot or will not mind their business cling to the victimless-crime concept, equating drug use and private sexual behavior with robbery and murder. If the right to mind one's own business is recognized, the whole shit disposition is untenable and Hell hath no vociferous fury than an endangered parasite.
Burroughs, William. The Place of Dead Roads. 1983.
Remember the Italian steward who put on women's clothes and so filched a seat in a lifeboat? "A cur in human shape, certainly he was born and saved to set a new standard by which to judge infamy and shame.
Burroughs, William. The Western Lands. 1987.
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.
Burroughs, William. The Western Lands. 1987.
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. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.
Burroughs, William. The War Universe in Grand Street, No. 37. 1991.
After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.
Burroughs, William. The War Universe in Grand Street, No. 37. 1991.
England has the most sordid literary scene I've ever seen. They all meet in the same pub. This guy's writing a foreword for this person. They all have to give radio programs, they have to do all this just to scrape by. They're all scratching each other's backs.
Burroughs, William. Forbes, April 2. 2002.
Now what sort of man or woman or monster would stroke a centipede I have ever seen? "And here is my good big centipede!" If such a man exists, I say kill him without more ado. He is a traitor to the human race.
Burroughs, William. The Western Lands. 1987.
be just and if you can't be just, be arbitrary
Burroughs, William. Naked Lunch. 1959.
Hustlers of the world, there is one Mark you cannot beat: The Mark Inside.
Burroughs, William. Naked Lunch. 1959.
A functioning police state needs no police.
Burroughs, William. Naked Lunch. 1959.
I awoke from The Sickness at the age of forty-five, calm and sane, and in reasonably good health except for a weakened liver and the look of borrowed flesh common to all who survive The Sickness... When I speak of drug addiction I do not refer to keif, marijuana or any preparation of hashish, mescaline, Banisteriopsis caapi, LSD6, Sacred Mushrooms or any other drugs of the hallucinogen group... There is no evidence that the use of any hallucinogen results in physical dependence.
Burroughs, William. Naked Lunch. 1959.
Our national drug is alcohol. We tend to regard the use of any other drug with special horror.
Burroughs, William. Naked Lunch. 1959.
The end result of complete cellular respiration is cancer. Democracy is cancerous, and bureaus are its cancer.
Burroughs, William. Naked Lunch. 1959.
A bureau operates on opposite principles of inventing needs to justify its existence.
Burroughs, William. Naked Lunch. 1959.
Bureaus die when the structure of the state collapse. They are as helpless and unfit for independent existence as a displaced tapeworm, or a virus that has killed the host.
Burroughs, William. Naked Lunch. 1959.
You see control can never be a means to any practical end. … Control can never be a means to anything but more control … like Junk.
Burroughs, William. Naked Lunch. 1959.