William Burroughs
William Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs IIwas an American novelist, short story writer, satirist, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer. Burroughs was a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author who wrote in the paranoid fiction genre, and his influence is considered to have affected a range of popular culture as well as literature. Burroughs wrote eighteen novels and novellas, six collections of short stories and four collections of essays. Five books have been published of his interviews and...
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth5 February 1914
CitySt. Louis, MO
air alien beyond creatures glimpse land looking medium survive time water wondering
We are like water creatures looking up at the land and air and wondering how we can survive in that alien medium. The water we live in is Time. That alien medium we glimpse beyond time is Space. And that is where we are going.
dream hard
Dream long and dream hard enoughYou will come to knowDreaming can make it so . . .
outer planet space visitor
After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say ''I want to see the manager.''
age-and-aging express human purpose relevant space
My purpose in writing has always been to express human potentials and purposes relevant to the Space Age.
cannot cheat cheating fake good landlord quality
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.
running
I'm running out of everything now. Out of veins, out of money.
against bed brush catch corner course desk far foot hit leg pilot rap repeat spacecraft strike surprised toe window
If you rap your knuckles against a window jamb or door, if you brush your leg against a bed or desk, if you catch your foot in a curled-up corner of a rug, or strike a toe against a desk or chair, go back and repeat the sequence. You will find yourself surprised how far off course you were to hit that window jamb, that door, that chair. Get back on course and do it again. How can you pilot a spacecraft if you can't find your way around your own apartment?
dreary exist
In the U.S. you have to be a deviant or exist in dreary boredom. Make no mistake; all intellectuals are deviants in the U.S.
cut fingers gentle glass iron land leap leopard man opportunity round shot thighs toes word
Gentle Reader, The Word will leap on you with leopard man iron claws, it will cut off fingers and toes like an opportunity land crab, it will coil round your thighs like a bushmaster and inject a shot glass of rancid ectoplasm.
alone eight exactly hours
I don't make myself work. It's just the thing I want to do. To be completely alone in a room, to know that there'll be no interruptions and I've got eight hours is exactly what I want -- yeah, just paradise.
acting areas explorer exploring inner map point psychic thoroughly
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.
affect among bad believe bitten cannot contrary dogma exact external people possibly primitive run science scientific snake somebody street viewpoint
The dogma of science is that the will cannot possibly affect external forces, and I think that's just ridiculous. It's as bad as the church. My viewpoint is the exact contrary of the scientific viewpoint. I believe that if you run into somebody in the street it's for a reason. Among primitive people they say if someone was bitten by a snake he was murdered. I believe that.
belong belongs demand knowledge time
All knowledge all discoveries belong to everybody. . . . All knowledge all discoveries belong to you by right. It is time to demand what belongs to you.
clock cut hang junk runs time wait
A junky runs on junk time. When his junk is cut off, the clock runs down and stops. All he can do is hang on and wait for non-junk time to start.