Laura > Laura's Quotes

“A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on. ”
― William S. Burroughs

“There is no intensity of love or feeling that does not involve the risk of crippling hurt. It is a duty to take this risk, to love and feel without defense or reserve.”
― William S. Burroughs

“Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.”
― William S. Burroughs, The Job: Interviews with 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. ”
― William S. Burroughs

“Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.”
― William S. Burroughs

“If I had my way we'd sleep every night all wrapped around each other like hibernating rattlesnakes.”
― William S. Burroughs

“Love is a haunting melody that I have never mastered, and I fear I never will.”
― William S. Burroughs

“When you stop growing you start dying.”
― William S. Burroughs, Junky

“You know a real friend?
Someone you know will look after your cat after you are gone.”
― William S. Burroughs, Last Words: The Final Journals

“There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.”
― William S. Burroughs, The Place of Dead Roads

“Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller what there is.”
― William S. Burroughs, Last Words: The Final Journals

“Language is a virus from outer space”
― William S. Burroughs

“Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage.”
― William S. Burroughs

“I am getting so far out one day I won't come back at all.”
― William S. Burroughs

“Panic is the sudden realization that everything around you is alive.”
― William S. Burroughs, Ghost of Chance

“Smash the control images. Smash the control machine.”
― William S. Burroughs, Dead City Radio

“we are all alone, born alone, die alone, and — in spite of true romance magazines — we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. i do not say lonely — at least, not all the time — but essentially, and finally, alone. this is what makes your self-respect so important, and i don’t see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness”
― William S. Burroughs

“Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.”
― William S. Burroughs

“I bear my burden proudly for all to see, to conquer prejudice and ignorance and hate with knowledge and sincerity and love. Whenever you are threatened by a hostile presence, you emit a thick cloud of love like an octopus squirts out ink...”
― William S. Burroughs

“There is in fact something obscene and sinister about photography, a desire to imprison, to incorporate, a sexual intensity of pursuit.”
― William S. Burroughs

“I miss you so much your absence causes me, at times, accute pain. I don't mean sexually. I mean in connection with my writing.”
― William S. Burroughs

“Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted”
― William S. Burroughs

“Open your mind and let the pictures out”
― William S. Burroughs

“Confusion hath fuck his masterpiece.”
― William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch: The Restored Text

“in the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen”
― William S Burroughs

“Paranoia is just having the right information.”
― William S. Burroughs

“The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself.”
― William S. Burroughs, The Cat Inside

“How long does it take man to realize that he cannot want what he wants? You have to live in hell to see heaven.”
― William S. Burroughs

“Happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict; those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war.”
― William S. Burroughs

“In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality. It is as final as the mountains: a fact. There it is. When you realize it you cannot complain.”
― William S. Burroughs, Queer