A cat's rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling blue sparks, eyes blazing and sputtering.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

A functioning police state needs no police.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say 'I want to see the manager.'
- William S. Burroughs Quote

Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

Be just and if you can't be just, be arbitrary.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

Black magic operates most effectively in preconscious, marginal areas. Casual curses are the most effective.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

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 Quote

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

How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

Hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

I am getting so far out one day I won't come back at all.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas, a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

Junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

Like all pure creatures, cats are practical.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

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 Quote

Nothing is true, everything is permitted.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

Our national drug is alcohol. We tend to regard the use any other drug with special horror.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

Smash the control images. Smash the control machine.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

The face of evil is always the face of total need.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

The only possible ethic is to do what one wants to do.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

The way to kill a man or a nation is to cut off his dreams, the way the whites are taking care of the Indians: killing their dreams, their magic, their familiar spirits.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

There couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

Which came first the intestine or the tapeworm?
- William S. Burroughs Quote

You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.
- William S. Burroughs Quote

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.
- William S. Burroughs Quote