More Quotes by William S. Burroughs
Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.
Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.
Language is a virus from outer space.
You were given the power to love in order to use it, no matter what pain it may cause you.
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.
If you weren't surprised by your life you wouldn't be alive. Life is surprise.
One very important aspect of art is that it makes people aware of what they know and don’t know they know... Once the breakthrough is made, there is a permanent expansion of awareness. But there is always a reaction of rage, of outrage, at the first breakthrough... So the artist, then, expands awareness. And once the breakthrough is made, this becomes part of the general awareness.
Every word is autobiographical, and every word is fiction.
No one is ever really alone. You are part of everything alive.
In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen. The dogma of science is that the will cannot possibly affect external forces, and I think that’s just ridiculous. It’s as bad as the church. My viewpoint is the exact contrary of the scientific viewpoint. I believe that if you run into somebody in the street it’s for a reason.
