Speaking for myself, art differs from writing in that I never know what I'm going to paint until I paint it, so it's almost like automatic writing. A writer, on the other hand, can't help but know what he's going to write, because the activity demands a degree of premeditation.
William S. Burroughs
Related When I write, I feel that I'm writing with my intellect. When I paint, I think it's some oth... ORHAN PAMUK You just write what you know, and I know what it's like to be a teenager in 1993,, and I'm a... MAGGIE CAREY 'If I Should Love Again' - I was just so impressed with myself writing something like that. ... BARRY MANILOW I don't know about other writers, but for myself, to write I must be relatively quiet - it's... RAY CHARLES It takes me a long time to write, and I trust myself, so I write very sparsely, so when I do, I know... EARL SWEATSHIRT They say I'm insane because I need to have so much creative control. They say I'm unmanageab... IGGY AZALEA Writing this book feels like a completely different activity from writing my comic strip because it&... ALISON BECHDEL I paint very messy. I throw paint around. So when I let myself do the same sort of thing with my wri... ERIN MORGENSTERN It's a very strange experience being on set of 'Breaking Bad;' you never know what's... LAURA FRASER When I write, I have a sort of secret kinship of readers in all countries who don't know each ot... TEJU COLE Everyone else thinks I'm a nonfiction writer. I think it's because my nonfiction is easier t... ROXANE GAY I'm not a size 0, and I'm nowhere close to it. But, I don't want anyone to know what I a... RACHEL ROY I find myself really feeling like it's possible that maybe the greater contribution I'm goin... KAREN ALLEN If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem, it's going to be average... DEREK WALCOTT I majored in journalism at Arizona State University, where I began writing the columns I write now, ... LAURIE NOTARO But, I'm kind of a control freak. I get really freaked out if I don't know what's going ... KRISTEN STEWART I'm obsessed. I've always needed to know what's going on but now it's a must. PATRICIA CLARKSON Creativity runs on automatic, no matter what's happening in other parts of my life. I can't ... MILLARD DREXLER I said, I don't want to paint things like Picasso's women and Matisse's odalisques lying... ELLSWORTH KELLY I don't ever know where I'm going. Because one of the wonderful things about writing, which ... WALTER MOSLEY It's kind of a catch-22 now because since the 'Da Vinci Code,' I have access to places a... DAN BROWN There's no such thing as a writer's block. If you're having trouble writing, well, pick ... NATALIE GOLDBERG Marley is someone before his time, man. He's - he's almost - he's like a deity, like alm... NAS I start with a character and a situation, but I don't know what's going to happen until I wr... LOUIS L'AMOUR It's a job. When I'm writing I'm going to do it five to six days a week and I'm goin... CANDACE BUSHNELL I take this art very seriously and passionately. I love what I do. You can't help but grow. That... CHRISTOPHER MELONI If it's about what I like, I like opera as a music and deathstep and dubstep. DEYTH BANGER I just don't see myself as retiring. As long as I'm healthy and can play the drums, that'... BILL KREUTZMANN Sometimes I write what I can't paint, and I paint what I can't write. I use a different part... ERIN MORGENSTERN Writing by myself, I spread that out more. I'll spend more time on a song then. I'm more cri... HUNTER HAYES I can't control what's going to happen in the future. I can't control what's going t... SAM BRADFORD I don't care if it's somebody else's song. Most of the time, you'll find that I'... TAJ MAHAL I paint. I still do it every day. I never neglected it. It's a gift. It's almost like religi... TAYLOR NEGRON When I sit at my table to write, I never know what it's going to be until I'm under way. I t... ALBERTO MORAVIA If the team's winning, I'm going to do whatever I can to help the team, whether that's f... CARSON WENTZ I never know, when I start writing a story, what's going to happen, or how it will all get sorte... JACQUELINE WOODSON I write until the first draft is finished, and then I feel that I can get out. But, during the time ... ISABEL ALLENDE My only qualifications to be an actor were that I'm daring, and I'm a quick learner. I'v... COLMAN DOMINGO Writing an essay is like a school assignment: I have my topic, I organize my thoughts, and I write i... TAWNI O'DELL If I'm writing something and I'm not feeling mischievous, then I know it's not going to ... ELIZABETH MERIWETHER People are paralyzed on a football field. People die. You just never know when it's going to be ... TROY POLAMALU I prefer to surprise myself as I'm writing. I'm not interested in it if I already know where... LOIS LOWRY I do want to work on writing, because writing's a skill. Writing is something that you can train... KRISTEN STEWART The way that I look at it is that, when we film for eight months straight for a new 'Jackass'... BAM MARGERA The fun thing about song writing is that it's just creative. It can be whatever you want it to b... KELSEA BALLERINI I characterize myself a little bit as a reluctant filmmaker. I learned from watching my friend in co... TANANARIVE DUE When I'm writing, I'm constantly thinking about myself, because it's the only experience... CHESTER BENNINGTON It's almost like the better I do, the more my feeling of inadequacy actually increases, because ... EMMA WATSON I don't think of myself as funny. I think of myself as rather grave, actually. And I'm suspi... HUGH LAURIE It's very selfish when I write. I'm not aware, ever, of writing for another person; I'm ... TANITH LEE I know what I'm going to write for the next three years. It's frustrating, because if I get ... BRUCE COVILLE I'm hesitant to make grand statements because I feel like that it's not exactly what I'm... SPIKE JONZE I'm a writer who simply can't know what I'm writing about until the writing lets me disc... FLOYD SKLOOT I looked at myself, and I just said, 'Well, you know, I can sing, but I'm not the greatest s... BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN When I'm writing, I try not to think things like, 'Gosh, I have to finish writing this book.... LINDA SUE PARK On 'Late Night,' it's like we're all in on the joke. That's what I wanted it to ... JIMMY FALLON I can't pretend that I'm a great student of the art of comedy because anybody that becomes p... JACKIE MASON I'd love to maybe try writing. I don't know if I'd publish anything, but as a hobby, it&... EMMA ROBERTS I know I'm a good professional, I know that no one's harder on me than myself and that's... CRISTIANO RONALDO Are you taking us to the beach?" - Dan Cahill JUDE WATSON There's an old hymn called 'How Can I Keep from Singing?' That's what writing feels ... SARAH ADDISON ALLEN When I hit a block, regardless of what I am writing, what the subject matter is, or what's going... TEA OBREHT The idea that I am cynical because I'm writing the books that I write is a bit like someone sayi... BEN SCHOTT For me, I've learned if I want a very stable, normal relationship, where I'll be like, '... CAMILA CABELLO As far as writing or directing a film, I've worked with enough people who have done that that I ... ZAK ORTH I don't think that what's going on in Bosnia is political activity. It's partly politica... JOHN KEEGAN I really - I don't take my work that seriously, and I think that's what keeps me loose. If I... ELMORE LEONARD I don't know what it's like to have a typical father figure. He's not the dad who's ... TIFFANY TRUMP I go through periods of not writing. Until there's something I can't find in the world that ... DAPHNE GOTTLIEB There have been times when I'm writing about things that are personally embarrassing. Like any h... WILLIAM T. VOLLMANN For me, it's always about what's on the page. I have tremendous respect for writing. When yo... NESTOR CARBONELL I want to stick with movies, but I also want to stick with YouTube. I'm never going to give up Y... KIAN LAWLEY It's so tedious writing cookbooks or writing the recipes because I've never been much of a m... MAYA ANGELOU I'm not a writer. I think I can write short stories and poetry, but film writing, brilliant film... SAMANTHA MORTON I always hear myself saying, 'She's a beauty!' or 'He's a beauty!' or 'W... ANDY WARHOL I write, having seen what's happening already in my head. I see it as a movie, and I'm just ... VICTORIA AVEYARD You know, there's always someone in mind when I'm writing. You know, it's all comes from... DAN AUERBACH I can't recommend technical writing as a day job for fiction writers because it's going to b... TED CHIANG I'm not saying writing comedy's brain surgery, but there is a certain pressure to it. It'... MIRANDA HART And I think I find, I know a lot of people around, in different cities, and so it's not - it mig... JOE SACCO At readings, audience members sometimes ask if I keep writing past the two hours if I'm on a rol... AIMEE BENDER For me, I never wore my religion on my sleeve, you know what I'm saying? I never put myself out ... LUPE FIASCO There's a crazy amount of goodwill, and I don't know where it came from, and I don't und... FEIST It's never going to get better than working opposite an actor like Jeff Bridges. That's as g... SAM ELLIOTT I'm just working and having a good time and seeing what develops, which is so awesome, because y... KATHLEEN HANNA So many people always try to help me carry my luggage and help me do things I can do myself. If I ca... CARRIE UNDERWOOD I draw hundreds and hundreds of pictures of sort of gnarly looking men, so I don't know what tha... DYLAN MORAN For years I've wanted to write about the Australian countryside, but, like most Australians, I... KATE GRENVILLE I'm really interested in the collaborative thing. It's what makes it scary because you never... MERYL STREEP Whenever I'm writing a song, if I have an idea for the music video, that's how I know it'... CHARLI XCX I know what it's like to feel snobby; I know what it's like to feel anxiety; I know what it&... MARIA SEMPLE When I'm directing, I'm pretty much not writing, but when I'm not directing I am writing... ADAM RAPP I love the secrecy of writing fiction. When I write a novel, I don't tell anybody what I'm d... UMBERTO ECO I don't know what it must be like to be a writer in general, but to be a comedy writer, it's... EDIE FALCO I will tell you that I'm a bit of a snob. I love film, and I would like to work in film, and I... KELLY MASTERSON For me personally, I'm always writing from what's happening in my emotional life. Even witho... WASHED OUT I'm just writing, writing, writing. I keep these tablets on me until I'm inspired to go back... KENDRICK LAMAR I'm not a natural writer like, let's say - I'm not talking about Arthur Miller; that'... GENE WILDER I would love to get great performances from actors as a director, because that's what I'm al... AARON ECKHART I never know if it's the right choice I'm making. It's always weird going from one place... SELENA GOMEZ
More William S. Burroughs
Virtue is simply happiness, and happiness is a by-product of function. You are happy when you are fu... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS A cat's rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling b... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. ... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS And if you're doing a deal with a religious son of a bitch, get it in writing. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around t... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS You know a real friend? Someone you know will look after your cat after you are gone. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS America is not so much a nightmare as a non-dream. The American non-dream is precisely a move to wip... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil before the settlers, before the Indians. T... WILLIAM S. 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BURROUGHS Now what sort of man or woman or monster would stroke a centipede I have ever seen? And here is my g... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS The people in power will not disappear voluntarily, giving flowers to the cops just isn't going to w... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they h... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Intelligence and war are games, perhaps the only meaningful games left. If any player becomes too pr... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can't mind their own business, becaus... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS So cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be don... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS A psychotic is a guy who's just found out what's going on. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Out of the closets and into the museums, libraries, architectural monuments, concert halls, bookstor... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. ... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Anything that can be done chemically can be done by other means. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS No atomic physicist has to worry, people will always want to kill other people on a mass scale. Sure... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS They tend to be suspicious, bristly, paranoid-type people with huge egos they push around like some ... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS There is the pleasurable orgasm, like a rising sales graph, and there is the unpleasurable orgasm, s... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Admittedly, a homosexual can be conditioned to react sexually to a woman, or to an old boot for that... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they ... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS So cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be d... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I s... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil before the settlers, before the Indians. ... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Admittedly, a homosexual can be conditioned to react sexually to a woman, or to an old boot for that... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS You must learn to exist with no religion, no country, no allies. You must learn to live alone in sil... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS An addict never stops growing. Stupider. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Changes... can only be effected by alterations in the original. The only thing not prerecorded in a ... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it.... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself. 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BURROUGHS Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS The Pusher always gets it all back. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say ''I want to see the manager.'' WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Whenever anyone reads his words the writer is there. He lives in his readers. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS A cat's rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling blue ... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Kerouac opened a million coffee bars and sold a million pairs of Levis to both sexes. Woodstock rise... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS If you rap your knuckles against a window jamb or door, if you brush your leg against a bed or desk,... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Truth is used to vitalize a statement rather than devitalize it. Truth implies more than a simple st... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS when I become death. Death is the seed from which I grow. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS No one owns life, but anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS The way to kill a man or a nation is to cut off his dreams, the way the whites are taking care of th... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS In fact, they recapitulate the story of Christianity word for word, like the inevitable course of so... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS When I say madness I mean what I see in a nut house: beat, resigned, dim, diffuse, nowhere people. N... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS I'm running out of everything now. Out of veins, out of money. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS The exact objectives of Islam Inc. are obscure. Needless to say everyone involved has a different an... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS (1) Never give anything away for nothing. (2) Never give more than you have to give (always catch th... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Never give succor to the mentally ill; it is a bottomless pit. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS It is doubtful if shame can exist in the absence of sexual libido. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Americans have a special horror of giving up control, of letting things happen in their own way with... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS When I become death, death is the seed from which I grow. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS My experience as an addict was very useful to me as writer: the whole syndrome of addiction and with... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS There is no intensity of love or feeling that does not involve the risk of crippling hurt. It is a d... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS The question is frequently asked: Why does a man become a drug addict? The answer is that he us... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS The first and most important thing an individual can do is to become an individual again, decontrol ... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS A Nazi initiation into the upper reaches of the SS was to gouge out the eye of a pet cat after feedi... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Panic is the sudden realization that everything around you is alive. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS When you stop growing you start dying. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS To put it country simple. Earth has a lot of things other folks might want, like the whole planet. A... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS I dont care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether th... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS England has the most sordid literary scene I've ever seen. They all meet in the same pub. This guy's... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether t... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS I think that Richard Nixon will go down in history as a true folk hero, who struck a vital blow to t... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself. Of course he wants care and shelter. You don... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Junkies have no interest in sex and they have no interest in other people except as suppliers of jun... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS No worse fate can befall a man than to be surrounded by traitor souls. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS To his secretary after a visit from Kurt Cobain, "There's something wrong with that boy. He frowns f... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS If the mortality rate seems high we must realize that Nature is a ruthless teacher. There are no sec... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS In the U.S. you have to be a deviant or exist in dreary boredom. Make no mistake; all intellectuals ... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Man has sold his soul for time, language, tools, weapons, and dominance. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Junk is not, like alcohol or weed, a means to increased enjoyment of life. Junk is not a kick. It is... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS In homosexual sex you know exactly what the other person is feeling, so you are identifying with the... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Madness is confusion of levels of fact. . . . Madness is not seeing visions but confusing levels. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Now what sort of man or woman or monster would stroke a centipede I have ever seen? ''And here is my... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Strip your psyche to the bare bones of spontaneous process, and you give yourself one chance in a th... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS NAKED Lunch -- a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS The only possible ETHIC is to do what one wants to do. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Thanks for the American dream, to vulgarize and falsify until the bare lies shine through. Thanks fo... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS I was new in the game and like all young thieves thought I had a license to steal. It didn't last. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS We must find out what words are and how they function. They become images when written down, but ima... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Americans have a special horror of giving up control, of letting things happen in their own way with... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS I am getting so far out one day I won't come back at all. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Smash the control images. Smash the control machine. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS I had not taken a bath in a year nor changed my clothes or removed them except to stick a needle eve... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Be just and if you can't be just, be arbitrary. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS The youth rebellion [1968] is a worldwide phenomenon that has not been seen before in history. I do ... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS He considered that immortality was the only goal worth striving for. He knew it was not something yo... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Gentle Reader, The Word will leap on you with leopard man iron claws, it will cut off fingers and to... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS I feel that this life is sort of a penal colony. People have goofed or we wouldn't be here. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS The idea that addiction is somehow a psychological illness is, I think, totally ridiculous. It's as ... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS All the role models are being exposed and this is good because role models are shit. The quicker we ... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS I prefer cats to people, for the most part. Most people aren't cute, & if they are cute the... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS There is a kidney-shaped fish pool outside the picture window. I cleaned it out and put in some larg... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS And there are my cats, engaged in a ritual that goes back thousands of years, tranquilly licking the... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Evidence indicates that cats were first tamed in Egypt. The Egyptians stored grain, which attracted ... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Cat hate reflects an ugly, stupid, loutish, bigoted spirit. There can be no compromise with this Ugl... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS How long does it take man to realize that he cannot want what he wants? You have to live in hell to ... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS All the filth and horror, fear, hate disease and death of human history flows between you and the We... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Writers don't write, they read and transcribe. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS I don't make myself work. It's just the thing I want to do. To be completely alone in a room, to kno... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS We gotta find a way off this goddamn cop-ridden planet. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS I know that Nature designs that this whole continent, not merely these thirty-six states, shall be, ... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS The best way to keep something bad from happening is to see it ahead of time... and you can't see it... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS We are like water creatures looking up at the land and air and wondering how we can survive in that ... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS All knowledge all discoveries belong to everybody. . . . All knowledge all discoveries belong to you... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS There is no line between the 'real world' and 'world of myth and symbol.' Objects, sensations, hit w... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Any belief in Creators or Purpose is wishful thinking. And when you point out that perhaps ALL think... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas . . . a cosmonaut of inner sp... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS My purpose in writing has always been to express human potentials and purposes relevant to the Space... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller. What there is . . . LOVE. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS I feel that any form of so called psychotherapy is strongly contraindicated for addicts. The questio... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS A junky runs on junk time. When his junk is cut off, the clock runs down and stops. All he can do is... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS We are setting out to create new worlds, new beings, new modes of consciousness. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Nothing is true, everything is permitted WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Hemingway was a prisoner of his style. No one can talk like the characters in Hemingway except the c... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Thanks, for a country where nobody is allowed to mind his own business. Thanks, for a nation of fink... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS The dogma of science is that the will cannot possibly affect external forces, and I think that's jus... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. ... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Hustlers of the world, there is one Mark you cannot beat: the Mark Inside. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS I began to get a feeling (...) of being the only sane man in a nut house. It doesn't make you feel s... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS The boy looks into Mugwump eyes blank as obsidian mirrors, pools of black blood, glory holes in a to... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Some people like neat suburbs. I always am attracted to the rundown and the old and the offbeat. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Scientology is a model control system, a state in fact with its own courts, police, rewards and pena... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Is Control controlled by its need to control? Answer: yes. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can't mind their own business, be... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Nobody's busting into YOUR apartment at three in the morning, are they? Well, then don't worry about... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Out of the closets and into the museums, libraries, architectural monuments, concert halls, bookstor... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS To be an outlaw you must first have a base in law to reject and get out of, I never had such a base.... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS They are all stupid peasants, and the worst of all peasants are the so-called educated. These people... WILLIAM S BURROUGHS Junk turns the user into a plant. Plants do not feel pain since pain has no function in a stationary... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS All over America, people were pulling credentials out of their pockets and sticking them under someo... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS I started to write in about 1950; I was thirty-five at the time; there didn't seem to be any str... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS That old feeling is still in my leaking heart. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS You know, they ask me if I were on a desert island and I knew nobody would ever see what I wrote, wo... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS For the last four years of her life, Mother was in a nursing home called Chateins in St. Louis ... [... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don’t make compromises, don’t worry about making a bunc... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS You need a good bedside manner with doctors or you will get nowhere. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS May 4, 1985. I am packing for a short trip to New York to discuss the cat book with Brion. In the fr... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS In the beginning his flesh was simply soft, so soft that he was cut to the bone by dust particles, a... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS After 1957 On The Road sold a trillion levis and a million espresso coffee machines, and also sent c... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Exterminate all rational thought WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS O death where is thy sting? The man is never on time... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS If I had my way we'd sleep every night all wrapped around each other like hibernating rattlesnakes. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS The aim of education is the knowledge, not the facts, but of values. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk? His whole abdomen ... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Hip - Someone who knows the score. Someone who understands "jive talk." Someone who is "with it." Th... WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Hemingway said: 'It don't come anymore.' So where did it go? WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS