More Quotes by William S. Burroughs
We must all face the fact that our leaders are certifiably insane or worse
Do not proffer sympathy to the mentally ill; it is a bottomless pit. Tell them firmly, "I am not paid to listen to this drivel - you are a terminal fool!" Otherwise, they make you as crazy as they are.
The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself.
There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.
You were given the power to love in order to use it, no matter what pain it may cause you.
Life is a vacation from two eternities, who wants to waste those precious years worrying about what happens when you get back to forever?
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.
No one is ever really alone. You are part of everything alive.
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.
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.
