Quotes from William S. Burroughs

Danger is a very rare commodity in these times, monopolized by intelligence agencies and stuntmen.

The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values.

Scientology is a model control system, a state in fact with its own courts, police, rewards and penalties.

No body of knowledge needs an organizational policy. Organizational policy can only impede the advancement of knowledge. There is a basic incompatibility between any organization and freedom of thought.

The only possible ethic is to do what one wants to do.

Black magic operates most effectively in preconscious, marginal areas. Casual curses are the most effective.

Knowing you might not make it... in that knowledge courage is born.

There couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks.

In the U.S., you have to be a deviant or die of boredom.

That old feeling is still in my leaking heart.

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.

in the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen

If you weren't surprised by your life you wouldn't be alive. Life is surprise.

How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity.

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

A consumer society is about simplfying and degrading the consumer as well as the product.

Like many nonconformist and beat generation writers, William S. Burroughs takes the outcasts of society as his theme.

what a horrible loutish planet this is. the dominant species consists of sadistic morons, faces bearing the hideous lineaments of spiritual famine swollen with stupid hate. hopeless rubbish.

The nonconformist here may be "beat down" by life but still has a beauty in his or her longing for freedom and for an awakening of the mind.

Life is a vacation from two eternities, who wants to waste those precious years worrying about what happens when you get back to forever?

Life is a vacation from two eternities.

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.

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.

Our national drug is alcohol. We tend to regard the use any other drug with special horror.