William S. Burroughs Quotes About Drugs

Quotes about: Drugs

• Our national drug is alcohol. We tend to regard the use of any other drug with special horror.

  William S. Burroughs

  Funny Sarcastic, Alcohol, Drug

  "Naked Lunch" by William S. Burroughs, Grove Press, (p. 201), 1959.

• 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

  Drug, Junk, Clients

  Naked Lunch (1959)

• 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: "Wouldn't 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.

  William S. Burroughs

  Funny, Dog, Lying

  "Naked Lunch". Book by William S. Burroughs, 1959.

• The idea that addiction is somehow a psychological illness is, I think, totally ridiculous. It's as psychological as malaria. It's a matter of exposure. People, generally speaking, will take any intoxicant or any drug that gives them a pleasant effect if it is available to them.

  William S. Burroughs

  Thinking, Ideas, People

  William S. Burroughs (2001). “Burroughs Live: The Collected Interviews of William S. Burroughs, 1960-1997”, Semiotext

• The whole drug war is nothing but a pretext to increase police power and personnel, and that, of course, is dead wrong. So many created imagined drug offenses.

  William S. Burroughs

  War, Police, Drug

  Source: www.litkicks.com

• The idea that anyone can use drugs and escape a horrible fate is anathema to these idiots. I predict in the near future right-wingers will use drug hysteria as a pretext to set up an international police apparatus.

  William S. Burroughs

  Fate, Ideas, Hysteria

• I meant that people will take anything that gives them a lift, whether it's alcohol or cocaine or the consciousness-expanding drugs or opiates. In Iran, until recently, they sold opium in shops legally, and they had 3,000,000 addicts in a population of 15,000,000. I don't believe that all those people were escaping from "complexes" or anything of the sort. They were simply exposed to it.

  William S. Burroughs

  Believe, Escaping, Iran

• 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.

  William S. Burroughs

  Marijuana, Mushrooms, Addiction

  "Deposition: Testimony Concerning a Sickness". William S. Burroughs' introduction to his book "Naked Lunch" (pp. 199-201), 1960 edition.

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

  William S. Burroughs

  Funny, Doctors, Drug

  William S. Burroughs (2012). “Junky: The Definitive Text of "Junk"”, p.8, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

• 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.

  William S. Burroughs

  Pain, Simple, Creative

  William S. Burroughs (2001). “Burroughs Live: The Collected Interviews of William S. Burroughs, 1960-1997”, Semiotext

• For instance, they [The Federal Narcotics Bureau ] give out that marijuana is a harmful and habit-forming drug, and it simply isn't. They claim that you can get addicted to opiates with one shot, and you can't. They over-estimate the physical bad effects, and so forth.

  William S. Burroughs

  Marijuana, Giving, Drug

  William S. Burroughs (2001). “Burroughs Live: The Collected Interviews of William S. Burroughs, 1960-1997”, Semiotext

• The consciousness-expanding drugs - the hallucinogens, such as cannabis, mescaline, LSD, Psylocybin - I think are useful to a writer up to a certain point. That is, they open psychic areas that would not otherwise be available to the writer. But I feel that once these areas have been opened and the writer has reached them, he is able to get back there in the future without the drug.

  William S. Burroughs

  Thinking, Psychics, Drug

  Source: www.stopsmilingonline.com

• I certainly wouldn't advocate anyone using drugs on a regular or habitual basis.

  William S. Burroughs

  Drug, Bases, Habitual

  Source: www.stopsmilingonline.com

• There isn't a feeling you can get on drugs that you can't get without drugs.

  William S. Burroughs

  Addiction, Drug, Feelings

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