Burroughs Quotes

• when I become death. Death is the seed from which I grow.

  William S. Burroughs

  Grows, Seeds

  William S. Burroughs (1979). “Ah Pook is here, and other texts”, Calder Publications Limited

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• 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

  Change, Believe, Despair

  William S. Burroughs (1988). “The Western Lands”, Penguin Group USA

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• American naturalist John Burroughs put it, “A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.

  Jeff Olson

  Running, Failure, Responsibility

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• Origami Striptease reads like William S. Burroughs and Djuna Barnes howling at a brutal paper moon.

  Susan Stinson

  Moon, Paper, Origami

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• Burroughs is the greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift.

  Jack Kerouac

  Satirical

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• 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.

  William S. Burroughs

  Children, Boys, Yellow

  William S. Burroughs (2007). “Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader”, p.16, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• I think it was when I ran into Kerouac and Burroughs - when I was 17 - that I realized I was talking through an empty skull... I wasn't thinking my own thoughts or saying my own thoughts.

  Allen Ginsberg

  Thinking, Talking, Skulls

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• I was taken by William Burroughs’ presence and intelligence from the first time I was introduced to him, by Lester Bangs in 1975. He was thrilling to listen to. When you heard him speak, you felt that you were privy to such a rare mind. Even in small-talk, he spoke with perfect economy of language. His shoots with me were very collaborative and it was an incredible opportunity to be able to photograph him over the course of twenty years.

  Kate Simon

  Taken, Opportunity, Years

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• As for the writers who have influenced me they are many. Hemingway, Chandler, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, William Goldman, Flannery O'Conner, Carson McCullers, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and so many others. As a kid Kipling and Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Robert E. Howard.

  Joe R. Lansdale

  Kids, Scott Fitzgerald, Rays

  Source: thequietus.com

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• All I wanted and all Neal wanted and all anybody wanted was some kind of penetration into the heart of things where, like in a womb, we could curl up and sleep the ecstatic sleep that Burroughs was experiencing with a good big mainline shot of M. and advertising executives in NY were experiencing with twelve Scotch & Sodas in Stouffers before they made the drunkard's train to Westchester---but without hangovers.

  Jack Kerouac

  Hangover, Heart, Sleep

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• People talk about this often in the art world. The press releases have reached a level of absurdity and creativity - creative absurdity - that has completely detached from its intended object. It's left reality behind long ago. It's like something out of William Burroughs.

  David Salle

  Art, Creativity, Reality

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Skullcrack City messes with your mind the way William Burroughs or a bellyful of hallucinogens will do. I'm a longtime fan of Johnson. A master of derangement, he's been bringing it for years. This time, though, it's different. He's burst into the clear and is taking seven-league strides across the literary landscape.

  Laird Barron

  Years, Cities, League

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• Bizarrely funny... Rarely is a documentary as well attuned to its subject as Howard Brookner's BURROUGHS, which captures as much about the life, work and sensibility of its subject as its 86 minute format allows.

  Janet Maslin

  Documentaries, Minutes, Capture

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• Science fiction is a dialogue, a tennis match, in which the Idea is volleyed from one side of the net to the other. Ridiculous to say that someone 'stole' an idea: no, no, a thousand times no. The point is the volley, and how it's carried, and what statement is made by the answering 'statement.' In other words — if Burroughs initiates a time-gate and says it works randomly, and then Norton has time gates confounded with the Perilous Seat, the Siege Perilous of the Round Table, and locates it in a bar on a rainy night — do you see both the humor and the volley in the tennis match?

  C. J. Cherryh

  Night, Ideas, Tennis

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• When I was young, I knew William Burroughs really well. And William's secret desire, which he never quite did, was to write a straightforward detective novel.

  Patti Smith

  Writing, Secret, Desire

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• I wasn't trying to be an outlaw writer. I never heard of that term; somebody else made it up. But we were all outside the law: Kerouac, Miller, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kesey; I didn't have a gauge as to who was the worst outlaw. I just recognized allies: my people.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Law, People, Trying

  Hunter S. Thompson (2011). “Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the F”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

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• John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities?

  Emma Goldman

  Character, Animal, Space

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism: Top Crime Collections”, p.34, 谷月社

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• For a while, the gay thing seemed like such a big deal. But now, I don't think it is. It's just a comedy-drama about people who live in the United States. It's a slice-of-life. I play a character-that's it. But I was well aware of the gay lifestyle before the show. I've been hit on in a really strong way by gay men who've tried to convert me, and a lot of my heroes are gay. William Burroughs, Lou Reed. Well, I guess Lou Reed is bi. The point is, it's 2002, gay life is no longer that shocking.

  Gale Harold

  Strong, Drama, Hero

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• There is no right or wrong reading of Naked Lunch, though some readings are more common, and thus Burroughs commercial is not the issue.

  Rick Moody

  Reading, Lunch, Issues

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• With 'Avatar,' I thought, Forget all these chick flicks and do a classic guys' adventure movie, something in the Edgar Rice Burroughs mold, like John Carter of Mars - a soldier goes to Mars.

  James Cameron

  Adventure, Guy, Soldier

  "Man of Extremes". Interview with Dana Goodyear, www.newyorker.com. October 26, 2009.

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• Norman Mailer thinks William Burroughs is a genius, which I think is ludicrous beyond words. I don't think William Burroughs has an ounce of talent.

  Truman Capote

  Thinking, Genius, Talent

  Lawrence Grobel, Truman Capote (1985). “Conversations with Capote”, E P Dutton

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• Like many nonconformist and beat generation writers, William S. Burroughs takes the outcasts of society as his theme.

  William S. Burroughs

  Generations, Outcast, Beats

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• I was suckered in by the myth of the man [ William Burroughs] as much as by his work.

  Oliver Harris

  Men, He Man, Myth

  Source: bigother.com

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• [Allen] Ginsberg totally helped that out. He was the best sales person. He was the most pop. They are still shocking and relevant, especially [William] Burroughs.

  Yony Leyser

  Sales Person, Ginsberg, Pops

  Source: www.outsideleft.com

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• Authors and artists are still afraid of breaking away as far as [William Burroughs] did... And he did it in the 50s!

  Yony Leyser

  Artist, Breaking Away, Stills

  Source: www.outsideleft.com

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