More Quotes by William S. Burroughs
Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.
I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it. My affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over Hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits.
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.
Life is a vacation from two eternities, who wants to waste those precious years worrying about what happens when you get back to forever?
Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.
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.
I think anybody incapable of changing his mind is crazy.
The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself.
The best way to keep something bad from happening is to see it ahead of time... and you can't see it if you refuse to face the possibility.
You were given the power to love in order to use it, no matter what pain it may cause you.
