More Quotes by William S. Burroughs
There are no innocent bystanders ... what are they doing there in the first place?
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.
Whether you like it or not, you are committed to the human endeavor. I cannot ally myself with such a purely negative goal as avoidance of suffering. Suffering is a chance you take by the fact of being alive.
If you weren't surprised by your life you wouldn't be alive. Life is surprise.
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.
Language is a virus from outer space.
Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.
The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself.
I am getting so far out one day I won't come back at all.
No one is ever really alone. You are part of everything alive.
