Top 300 William S. Burroughs Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Nothing is true, everything is permitted.”

— William S. Burroughs

2. “Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.”

— William S. Burroughs

Featured in: Caring Quotes, Crazy Quotes

3. “When you stop growing you start dying.”

— William S. Burroughs

4. “NOTHING happens by coincidence.”

— William S. Burroughs

5. “Cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.”

— William S. Burroughs

Featured in: Quotes About Writing

6. “Language is a virus from outer space.”

— William S. Burroughs

7. “Open your mind and let the pictures out.”

— William S. Burroughs

8. “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

Featured in: Space Quotes, Math Quotes

9. “You must learn to exist with no religion, no country, no allies. You must learn to live alone in silence.”

— William S. Burroughs

Featured in: Country Quotes

10. “This is a war universe. War all the time. There may be other universes, but ours seems to be based on war and games.”

— William S. Burroughs

11. “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

12. “A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on.”

— William S. Burroughs

13. “The word is now a virus.”

— William S. Burroughs

14. “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

15. “If you build a good name, eventually, that name will be its own currency.”

— William S. Burroughs

16. “When you cut into the present the future leaks out.”

— William S. Burroughs

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

— William S. Burroughs

18. “Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller what there is.”

— William S. Burroughs

19. “Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.”

— William S. Burroughs

20. “Smash the control images. Smash the control machine.”

— William S. Burroughs

21. “America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil before the settlers, before the Indians. The evil is there waiting.”

— William S. Burroughs

22. “Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it ‘creative observation.’ Creative viewing.”

— William S. Burroughs

23. “If after having been exposed to someone’s presence you feel as if you’ve lost a quart of plasma, avoid that presence. You need it like you need pernicious anemia.”

— William S. Burroughs

24. “Hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside.”

— William S. Burroughs

25. “We must all face the fact that our leaders are certifiably insane or worse.”

— William S. Burroughs

26. “We should exterminate all rational thought.”

— William S. Burroughs

27. “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

Featured in: Sadness Quotes, Complaining Quotes

28. “Cut word lines – Cut music lines – Smash the control images – Smash the control machine – Burn the books – Kill the priests – Kill! Kill! Kill!”

— William S. Burroughs

Featured in: Book Quotes

29. “Jesus Christ said ‘by their fruits ye shall know them,’ not by their disclaimers.”

— William S. Burroughs

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

— William S. Burroughs

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31. “I think all writers write for an audience. There is no such thing as writing for yourself.”

— William S. Burroughs

32. “If the soft machine works, don’t fix it. If it works, don’t fix it.”

— William S. Burroughs

33. “All writing is in fact cut-ups. A collage of words read heard overheard. What else?”

— William S. Burroughs

34. “The purpose of technology is not to confuse the brain but to serve the body.”

— William S. Burroughs

35. “For God’s sake, keep your eyes open. Notice what’s going on around you.”

— William S. Burroughs

36. “There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.”

— William S. Burroughs

37. “Thanks for the American dream, to vulgarize and falsify until the bare lies shine through. Thanks for a country where nobody’s allowed to mind their own business.”

— William S. Burroughs

Featured in: Country Quotes

38. “The only way I like to see cops given flowers is in a flower pot from a high window.”

— William S. Burroughs

39. “My greatest strength is to have a great capacity to confront myself no matter how unpleasant. My greatest weakness is that I don’t. I know that’s enigmatic, but that’s sort of a general formula for anyone, actually.”

— William S. Burroughs

40. “The first and most important thing an individual can do is to become an individual again, decontrol himself, train himself as to what is going on and win back as much independent ground for himself as possible.”

— William S. Burroughs

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

— William S. Burroughs

42. “I do spend a great deal of time alone. I’m not very gregarious. I don’t like parties and miscellaneous gatherings with no particular purpose. I think parties are largely a mistake. The bigger they are the more mistaken they are.”

— William S. Burroughs

43. “The idea that anyone can use drugs and escape a horrible fate is anathema to these idiots. I predict in the near future right-wingers will use drug hysteria as a pretext to set up an international police apparatus.”

— William S. Burroughs

44. “Tangier is one of the few places left in the world where, so long as you don’t proceed to robbery, violence, or some form of crude, antisocial behavior, you can do exactly what you want.”

— William S. Burroughs

45. “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.”

— William S. Burroughs

46. “Artists to my mind are the real architects of change.”

— William S. Burroughs

Featured in: Real Quotes

47. “I am getting so far out one day I won’t come back at all.”

— William S. Burroughs

48. “Who was I? The stranger was footsteps in the snow a long time ago.”

— William S. Burroughs

49. “If I knew how much you loved me, I would’ve shot you sooner.”

— William S. Burroughs

50. “Revolution in America begins in books and music, then waits for political operatives to ‘implement changes after the fact.’”

— William S. Burroughs

Featured in: Book Quotes