I see no reason why the artistic world can’t absolutely merge with Madison Avenue. Pop art is a move in that direction. Why can’t we have advertisements with beautiful words and beautiful images? – William S. Burroughs
Junk is the ideal product… the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy. – William S. Burroughs
Gentle reader, the Fountain of Youth is radioactive, and those who imbibe its poisonous heavy waters will suffer the hideous fate of decaying metal. Yet almost without exception, the wretched idiot inhabitants of our benighted planet would gulp down this radioactive excrement if it were offered. – William S. Burroughs
Speaking for myself, art differs from writing in that I never know what I’m going to paint until I paint it, so it’s almost like automatic writing. A writer, on the other hand, can’t help but know what he’s going to write, because the activity demands a degree of premeditation. – William S. Burroughs
You must learn to exist with no religion, no country, no allies. You must learn to live alone in silence. – William S. Burroughs
Changes… can only be effected by alterations in the original. The only thing not prerecorded in a prerecorded universe are the prerecordings themselves. The copies can only repeat themselves word for word. A virus is a copy. You can pretty it up, cut it up, scramble it – it will reassemble in the same form. – 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
I started to write in about 1950; I was thirty-five at the time; there didn’t seem to be any strong motivation. I simply was endeavoring to put down in a more or less straightforward journalistic style something about my experiences with addiction and addicts. – 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
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
My relationships with my cats has saved me from a deadly, pervasive ignorance. – William S. Burroughs
Some people like neat suburbs. I always am attracted to the rundown and the old and the offbeat. – William S. Burroughs
Our national drug is alcohol. We tend to regard the use any other drug with special horror. – 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
If everyone is to be made responsible for everything they do, you must extend responsibility beyond the level of conscious intention. – William S. Burroughs
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. – 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
Admittedly, a homosexual can be conditioned to react sexually to a woman, or to an old boot for that matter. In fact, both homo – and heterosexual experimental subjects have been conditioned to react sexually to an old boot, and you can save a lot of money that way. – William S. Burroughs
