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Artist, The
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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
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Authors & Writing
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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, Remark, 1964. Quoted in: Eric Mottram, William Burroughs: The Algebra of Need, pt. 1, ch. 1 (1977).
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Kerouac and I are not real at all. The only thing about a writer is that he has written, and not his so-called life. 'And we (will) all die and the stars will go out, one after another.'
-William S. Burroughs
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Gambling (Gaming)
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Intelligence and war are games, perhaps the only meaningful games left. If any player becomes too proficient, the game is threatened with termination.
-William S. Burroughs
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Mankind, Man
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After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say "I want to see the manager."
-William S. Burroughs
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Psychiatry
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A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on.
-William S. Burroughs
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A psychotic is a guy who's just found out what's going on.
-William S. Burroughs
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Quality
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So 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
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Words
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My general theory since 1971 has been that the word is literally a virus, and that it has not been recognized as such because it has achieved a state of relatively stable symbiosis with its human host; that is to say, the word virus (the other Half) has established itself so firmly as an accepted part of the human organism that it can now sneer at gangster viruses like smallpox and turn them in to the Pasteur Institute.
-William S. Burroughs
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Books by and about William S. Burroughs
