85 quotes
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.
Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.
The Western Lands (1987)
Stupid people can learn a language quiet and easy because there is nothing going on in there to keep it out.
Queer: A Novel (1985)
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...
Naked Lunch (1959)
I'm creating an imaginary — it's always imaginary — world in which I would like to live.
A bureau operates on opposite principles of inventing needs to justify its existence.
Naked Lunch (1959)
From symbiosis to parasitism is a short step. The word is now a virus.
The Ticket That Exploded (1962)
All modern systems are riddled with contradictions.
The Adding Machine: Collected Essays (1985)
The end result of complete cellular representation is cancer. Democracy is cancerous, and bureaus are its cancer.
Naked Lunch (1959)
You become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong motivations in the other direction. Junk wins by default.
Junkie (1953)
Well as, one judge said to the other, 'Be just and if you can't be just be arbitrary.' Regret cannot observe customary obscenities.
Naked Lunch (1959)
Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller what there is. LOVE.
Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs (2000)
Bureaus die when the structure of the state collapse. They are as helpless and unfit for independent existence as a displaced tapeworm, or a virus that has killed the host.
Naked Lunch (1959)
A government is never more dangerous than when embarking on a self-defeating or downright suicidal course.
The Adding Machine: Collected Essays (1985)
When you give up junk, you give up a way of life.
Junkie (1953)
And what does the money machine eat to shit it out? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty and above all it eats creativity. It eats quality and shits out quantity.
The Job: Interviews with William S. Burroughs (1966)
Victimless crimes are the lifeline of the RIGHT virus. And there is a growing recognition, even in official quarters, that victimless crimes should be removed from the books or subject to minimal penalties.
The Place Of Dead Roads (1983)
Once a junky, always a junky. You can stop using junk, but you are never off after the first habit.
Junkie (1953)
After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say "I WANT TO SEE THE MANAGER."
When people start talking about their bowel movements, they are inexorable as the processes of which they speak.
Junkie (1953)