William S. Burroughs

“A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on. A psychotic is a guy who's just found out what's going on.”

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

“Nobody owns life, but anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death.”

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

“Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.”

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

“Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape. ”

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

“Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.”

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

“You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative.”

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

“The first and most important thing an individual can do is to become an individual again, decontrol himself, train himself as to what is going on and win back as much independent ground for himself as possible”

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

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

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

"A functioning police state needs no police."

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

"We must all face the fact that our leaders are certifiably insane or worse"

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

"What does the money machine eat? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty, and, above all, it eats creativity. It eats quality and sh*ts quantity."

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

"You must learn to exist with no religion, no country, no allies. You must learn to live alone in silence."

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

"I think anybody incapable of changing his mind is crazy."

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

"No one is ever really alone. You are part of everything alive."

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

"The simplest questions are the most difficult."

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

"God save the Queen and a fascist regime … a flabby toothless fascism, to be sure. Never go too far in any direction, is the basic law on which Limey-Land is built. The Queen stabilizes the whole sinking shithouse and keeps a small elite of wealth and privilege on top. The English have gone soft in the outhouse. England is like some stricken beast too stupid to know it is dead. Ingloriously foundering in its own waste products, the backlash and bad karma of empire"

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

"To concern yourself with surface political conflicts is to make the mistake of the bull in the ring, you are charging the cloth. That is what politics is for, to teach you the cloth. Just as the bullfighter teaches the bull, teaches him to follow, obey the cloth."

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

"The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself."

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

"Now Christianity sounded good at first to the naive convert. Love, peace and charity -

what's wrong with that? I'll tell you what's wrong - a series of unprecedented

horrors perpetrated by so-called Christians: The Inquisition, the Conquistadores,

the American Indian wars, slavery, Hiroshima and the present-day Bible Belt."

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

"Most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can't mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus has."

—William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)