35 Quotes by William Burroughs

My experience as an addict was very useful to me as writer: the whole syndrome of addiction and withdrawal and the extensions of that and other forms of addiction. It gave me a great deal of material. A writer can profit by something that someone else may not be able to profit from at all. Yet they were very disagreeable experiences. Very boring experiences.

No worse fate can befall a man than to be surrounded by traitor souls.

Never give succor to the mentally ill; it is a bottomless pit.

I dont care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it.

I feel that this life is sort of a penal colony. People have goofed or we wouldn't be here.

My purpose in writing has always been to express human potentials and purposes relevant to the Space Age.

Junk is the ultimate merchandise. The junk merchant does not sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to the product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise, he degrades and simplifies the client.

It is doubtful if shame can exist in the absence of sexual libido.

I was new in the game and like all young thieves thought I had a license to steal. It didn't last.