Quotes by William S. Burroughs

Panic is the sudden realization that everything around you is alive.

I began to get a feeling familiar to me from my bartending days of being the only sane man in a nuthouse. It doesnt make you feel superior but depressed and scared, because there is nobody you can contact.

Intelligence and war are games, perhaps the only meaningful games left. If any player becomes too proficient, the game is threatened with termination.

Jesus Christ said by their fruits ye shall know them, not by their disclaimers.

As a young child I wanted to be a writer 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.

The face of evil is always the face of total need. A dope fiend is a man in total need of dope. Beyond a certain frequency need knows absolutely no limit or control. In the words of total need: Wouldnt you? Yes you would. You would lie, cheat, inform on your friends, steal, do anything to satisfy total need. Because you would be in a state of total sickness, total possession, and not in a position to act in any other way. Dope fiends are sick people who cannot act other than they do. A rabid dog cannot choose but bite.

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.

Thinking is not enough. Nothing is. There is no final enough of wisdom, experience--any fucking thing. No Holy Grail, No Final Satori, no final solution. Just conflict.

Language is a virus from outer space

The word has not been recognized as a virus because it has achieved a state of stable symbiosis with the host.

We intend to destroy all dogmatic verbal systems.

That old feeling is still in my leaking heart.

Paranoia is just having the right information.

The study of thinking machines teaches us more about the brain than we can learn by introspective methods. Western man is externalizing himself in the form of gadgets.

But youre an artist. You dont believe in decency and honesty and gratitude.

Why are we here? Were here to go!

Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.

home is where your ass is and if you want to move you move your ass the first step is learning to change homes with someone else and have someone elses ass.

All over America, people were pulling credentials out of their pockets and sticking them under someone elses nose to prove they had been somewhere or done something. And I thought someday everyone in America will suddenly jump up and say, I dont take any shit! and start pushing and cursing and clawing at the man next to him.

I had the feeling that all over America such stupid arguments were taking place on street corners and in bars and restaurants. All over America, people were pulling credentials out of their pockets and sticking them under someone elses nose to prove they had been somewhere or done something. And I thought someday everyone in America will suddenly jump up and say I dont take any shit! and start pushing and cursing and clawing at the man next to him.