More Quotes by William S. Burroughs
It is to be remembered that all art is magical in origin - music, sculpture, writing, painting - and by magical I mean intended to produce very definite results. Paintings were originally formulae to make what is painted happen. Art is not an end in itself, any more than Einstein's matter-into-energy formulae is an end in itself. Like all formulae, art was originally FUNCTIONAL, intended to make things happen, the way an atom bomb happens from Einstein's formulae.
How long does it take man to realize that he cannot want what he wants? You have to live in hell to see heaven.
Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.
I think anybody incapable of changing his mind is crazy.
We must all face the fact that our leaders are certifiably insane or worse
There are no innocent bystanders ... what are they doing there in the first place?
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.
Paranoia is just having the right information.
NOTHING happens by coincidence.
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.
