Burroughs Quotes

For two summers not a blue wing, not a blue warble. I seemed to miss something kindred and precious from my environment
the visible embodiment of the tender sky and wistful soil. What a loss, I said, to coming generations of dwellers in the country
no bluebird in spring! ~ John Burroughs

Although I was able to maintain a pleasant expression, I was mentally throwing up in her face. ~ Augusten Burroughs

Bookman isn't a stable man. He has a lot of problems that run very, very deep.
But he was really good at giving head. ~ Augusten Burroughs

I've seen villages in South America with no police whatever. Then the cops would arrive, then the sanitary inspectors, and before you know it they've got all the problems - crime, juvenile delinquency, the whole works - just like us. ~ William S. Burroughs

The English have gone soft in the outhouse. England is like some stricken beast too stupid to know it is dead. ~ William S. Burroughs

putting on a "b" production for a fruit ~ William S. Burroughs

I said all the wrong things. Except when I was busy saying all the mean ones and in the end I hated everybody and everything. ~ Augusten Burroughs

The first miracle Jesus performed was instant winemaking. No wonder people loved Him! He probably received a bunch of wedding invitations after that one. ~ Dillon Burroughs

If, after having been in someone's presence, you feel like you've lost a quart of plasma - avoid that presence. No one likes to hear the word "vampire" used around here... it's kind of bad for our public image. ~ William S. Burroughs

Burroughs was never really that pleased with the way popular culture and society treated his character. He tried to make a few movies of his own as a result, but they weren't very good. ~ Brendan Fraser

As my friend Amy observed: "Divorce is like a Polaroid picture. What truly happened will develop over time and you will see. ~ Augusten Burroughs

I miss you so much your absence causes me, at times, accute pain. I don't mean sexually. I mean in connection with my writing. ~ William S. Burroughs

Oh be careful! There they go again!" said the old queen as his string broke spilling his balls over the floor ... "Stop them will you, James, you worthless old shit! Don't just stand there and let the master's balls roll into the coal-bin! ~ William S. Burroughs

God's will isn't always written in the sky, but it is clearly written in His Word. ~ Dillon Burroughs

Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the center of the world. ~ John Burroughs

It is contrary to the worship that is in contentedness. ~ Jeremiah Burroughs

Glen had a disability more disfiguring than a burn and more terrifying than cancer.
Glen had been born on the day after Christmas.
"My parents just combine my birthday with Christmas, that's all," he explained.
But we knew this was a lie. Glen's parents just wrapped a couple of his Christmas presents in birthday-themed wrapping paper, stuck some candles in a supermarket cake, and had a dinner of Christmas leftovers. ~ Augusten Burroughs

I find a sufficiency of satisfaction in my own heart, through the grace of Christ that is in me. Though I have not outward comforts and worldly conveniences to supply my necessities, yet I have a sufficient portion between Christ and my soul abundantly to satisfy me in every condition. ~ Jeremiah Burroughs

What--has O-Tar seen an ulsio and fainted?" demanded I-Gos with broad sarcasm.

"Men have died for less than that, ancient one," E-Thas reminded him.

"I am safe," retorted I-Gos, "for I am not a brave and popular son of the jeddak of Manator. ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs

I've learned a hell of a lot from [William S.] Burroughs. I think the best things in my books probably are inspired by Burroughs. I think about what Burroughs wrote and then I try to go one step further. And I may go one step back; I don't know. ~ Robert Anton Wilson

It is a strange tale and utterly Barsoomian. ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs

All the world's a gallows and we all play our parts, some are towel boys, others lewd doctors, most of us just dirty old men whimper at life's Glory Hole. ~ William S. Burroughs

Science fiction is a dialogue, a tennis match, in which the Idea is volleyed from one side of the net to the other. Ridiculous to say that someone 'stole' an idea: no, no, a thousand times no. The point is the volley, and how it's carried, and what statement is made by the answering 'statement.' In other words - if Burroughs initiates a time-gate and says it works randomly, and then Norton has time gates confounded with the Perilous Seat, the Siege Perilous of the Round Table, and locates it in a bar on a rainy night - do you see both the humor and the volley in the tennis match? ~ C.J. Cherryh

This is what I'm saying; you hate your life.
But you don't know what life is.
Life is too huge for you to possibly hate.
If you hate life, you haven't seen enough of it. If you hate your life, it's because your life is too small and doesn't fit you.
However big you think your life is, it's nothing compared to what's out there. ~ Augusten Burroughs

If you consider any set of data without a preconceived viewpoint, then a viewpoint will emerge from the data. ~ William S. Burroughs

If I came to your town and asked any person on the street, "Which church should I go to if I want to get involved in helping the poor or homeless in this community?" would your church be the first one mentioned? Make this identity your goal. ~ Dillon Burroughs

Then, again, how annoying to be told it is only five miles to the next place when it is really eight or ten! ~ John Burroughs

Everything Jack says is to be taken with considerable reserve. ~ William S. Burroughs

[Allen] Ginsberg totally helped that out. He was the best sales person. He was the most pop. They are still shocking and relevant, especially [William] Burroughs. ~ Yony Leyser

A typical modern Puritan, she was able to believe in sin without believing in God. In fact, she felt there was something soft and sinful about believing in God. She rejected such indulgence like an indecent proposal. ~ William S. Burroughs

Bizarrely funny ... Rarely is a documentary as well attuned to its subject as Howard Brookner's BURROUGHS, which captures as much about the life, work and sensibility of its subject as its 86 minute format allows. ~ Janet Maslin

Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all - that has been my religion. ~ John Burroughs

It's a tract against capital punishment in the genre of Swift's Modest Proposal. I was simply following a formula to its logical conclusion. Some people appear to have understood it. The publication of Naked Lunch in England practically coincided with their abolition of capital punishment. The book obviously had a certain effect. ~ William S. Burroughs

To learn something new, take the path that you took yesterday. ~ John Burroughs

But I can also write in crappy motel rooms, while standing in line, or sitting in the dentist's chair. ~ Augusten Burroughs

One goes to Nature only for hints and half-truths. Her facts are crude until you have absorbed them or translated them ... It is not so much what we see as what the thing seen suggests. ~ John Burroughs

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

There was no need for words - at least none that I could imagine, unless Perry desired to pray. And I was quite sure that he would, ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs

Now I can add prostitute to my list of life's accomplishments. ~ Augusten Burroughs

I really look at my childhood as being one giant rusty tuna can that I continue to recycle in many different shapes. ~ Augusten Burroughs

The life of nature we must meet halfway; it is shy, withdrawn, and blends itself with a vast neutral background. We must be initiated; it is an order the secrets of which are well guarded. ~ John Burroughs

Dennis is the person who organizes everything in our lives. To the casual outsider, it would seem grossly unfair. He owns a company, he handles all our money, he manages our lives. While I sit and write, Dennis does everything else. When I try to accept additional responsibilities, I make a mess and he has to fix whatever I broke. ~ Augusten Burroughs

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

We have produced some good walkers and saunterers, and some noted climbers; but as a staple recreation, as a daily practice, the mass of the people dislike and despise walking. ~ John Burroughs

In AA, you are brainwashed into believing that all the good stuff happens only after you stop drinking. Clearly they are lying; my life improved significantly as soon as I ordered a cocktail. ~ Augusten Burroughs

In sharing how God is changing our lives, we find the lives of others changed as well. ~ Dillon Burroughs

I believe in the baby Jesus, and I believe he is handsome and lives in the sky with his pet cow. I believe that it is essential the cow like you, and if you pet the cow with your mind, it will lick your hand and give you cash. But if you make the cow angry, it will turn away from you, forget you exist, and your life will fall into shambles. I believe that as long as the cow likes you, you can get what you want. In order to keep the cow's favor, you need to 'let go and let God,' meaning you can't obsess about controlling every little thing. You have to let things unfold naturally, and not try to change things you cannot change. On the other hand, I believe that if you've made the cow happy by living this way, you're allowed to ask for favors... ~ Augusten Burroughs

the bridesmaid's hand in his, "Hazel and I think it would be ripping to make it a double wedding." The ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs

Life is a struggle, but not a warfare. ~ John Burroughs

And human instinct is ancient and reliable, utterly mysterious and possibly capable of great genius. I believe that refined, fluent instincts are a person's most valuable asset. My own instincts have repeatedly guided me against the grain of logic and probability. When I have trusted and followed their direction, they have never been wrong. I don't know how or why. But I know that every significant experience-positive or negative-sharpens them and makes them more accurate. ~ Augusten Burroughs

My parents had this relationship that was really terrifying. I mean, the level of hatred that they had, and the level of physical abuse - my mother would beat up my father, basically - and I think I was drawn to images on television that were bright and reflective. ~ Augusten Burroughs

Evidence indicates that cats were first tamed in Egypt. The Egyptians stored grain, which attracted rodents, which attracted cats. (No evidence that such a thing happened with the Mayans, though a number of wild cats are native to the area.) I don't think this is accurate. It is certainly not the whole story. Cats didn't start as mousers. Weasels and snakes and dogs are more efficient as rodent-control agents. I postulate that cats started as psychic companions, as Familiars, and have never deviated from this function. ~ William S. Burroughs

As a writer, you can't allow yourself the luxury of being discouraged and giving up when you are rejected, either by agents or publishers. You absolutely must plow forward. ~ Augusten Burroughs

The one thing that will finally make you feel you aren't missing something essential, such as the point. ~ Augusten Burroughs

As for the writers who have influenced me they are many. Hemingway, Chandler, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, William Goldman, Flannery O'Conner, Carson McCullers, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and so many others. As a kid Kipling and Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Robert E. Howard. ~ Joe R. Lansdale

Travel and society polish one, but a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a little moss is a good thing on a man. ~ John Burroughs

The dark side of blogging is, of course, people can be (and are) just savage and uncivilized, deeply cruel and fully unaccountable. ~ Augusten Burroughs

O bluebird, welcome back again, Thy azure coat and ruddy vest, Are hues that April loveth best ... ~ John Burroughs

There is a complexity to life that I often overlook. There is a depth of thinking, there is a richness. I am skating on the surface. ~ Augusten Burroughs

Most people don't notice what's going on around them. That's my principal message to writers: for God's sake, keep your eyes open. ~ William S. Burroughs

I was his "little girl with the William Burroughs mind," his "secret fairy," "female Frank Zappa" and "window onto a magical world." He said I fell to earth, leaving wing-marks on the ceilings of our dreams. ~ Jalina Mhyana

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. ~ William S. Burroughs

Wind rippled the trees, the darkness seeming to gather itself closer around him. ~ Rick Burroughs

I feel that the change, the mutation in consciousness, will occur spontaneously once certain pressures now in operation are removed. I feel that the principal instrument of monopoly and control that prevents expansion of consciousness is the word lines controlling thought, feeling and apparent sensory impressions of the human host. ~ William S. Burroughs

Because confidence is not the presence of anything at all. Confidence is a reduction of your own interest in whether others are thinking about you and if so, what they're thinking. Put another way, to be more confident you need to give a whole lot less of a shit about what other people think of you. Confidence is not something you feel or possess; it's something others use to describe what they see when they look at you. The experience others call confidence you experience as being at ease, fully yourself, and not self-conscious but rather task conscious. When ~ Augusten Burroughs

Later, Thuran also found it necessary to construct a similar primitive garment, so that, with their bare legs and heavily bearded faces, they looked not unlike reincarnations of two prehistoric progenitors of the human race. Thuran acted like one. ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs

Before the bud swells, before the grass springs, before the plough is started, comes the sugar harvest. It is sequel of the bitter frost; a sap run is the sweet goodbye of winter. ~ John Burroughs

The question is frequently asked: Why does a man become a drug addict?
The answer is that he usually does not intend to become an addict. You don't wake up one morning and decide to be a drug addict. It takes at least three months' shooting twice a day to get any habit at all. And you don't really know what junk sickness is until you have had several habits. It took me almost six months to get my first habit, and then the withdrawal symptoms were mild. I think it no exaggeration to say it takes about a year and several hundred injections to make an addict.
The questions, of course, could be asked: Why did you ever try narcotics? Why did you continue using it long enough to become an addict? You become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong motivations in the other direction. Junk wins by default. I tried it as a matter of curiosity. I drifted along taking shots when I could score. I ended up hooked. Most addicts I have talked to report a similar experience. They did not start using drugs for any reason they can remember. They just drifted along until they got hooked. If you have never been addicted, you can have no clear idea what it means to need junk with the addict's special need. You don't decide to be an addict. One morning you wake up sick and you're an addict. (Junky, Prologue, p. xxxviii) ~ William S. Burroughs

As he dropped the last grisly fragment of the dismembered and mutilated body into the small vat of nitric acid that was to devour every trace of the horrid evidence which might easily send him to the gallows, the man sank weakly into a chair and throwing his body forward upon his great, teak desk buried his face in his arms, breaking into dry, moaning sobs. ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs

Should I just sit down, right here at carousel seven, and shake until somebody's arms are around me and they're saying, 'It's okay, I'm here, I'm here, come with me to the institute. ~ Augusten Burroughs

To delight in the law of the Lord is to find our source of joy outside of ourselves. ~ Dillon Burroughs

It can be a bit of a puzzle, locating the single aspect of your life that isn't what it appears to be, the belief you assume you hold dear but that, in fact, you've never even questioned.

It's hard to find what you don't know you're searching for. ~ Augusten Burroughs

Change the world today. Start with the next person you meet. ~ Dillon Burroughs

No matter how awful something is, you can always sell tickets. ~ Augusten Burroughs

Sometimes, people avoid recognizing how they feel because they believe the feelings are a part of them, and admitting to harboring anger or jealousy feels like admitting to a physical flaw. So certain feelings are denied. Which is something like believing your house is clean as long as you don't peek under the beds. ~ Augusten Burroughs

The dichotomy of the gun-toting, substance-abusing queer seeking spiritual refuge might strike some as anticlimactic. But William Burroughs was not what he appeared to be to many of his fans. The work which so many revere as biblical texts in the church of addiction were always seen by the writer himself as cautionary rather than visionary. ~ William S. Burroughs

But life would be very miserable indeed were I to spend it in terror of the thing that has not yet happened. ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs

Our God is known for His compassion for the needy; let us be known for it as well. ~ Dillon Burroughs

After 1957 On The Road sold a trillion levis and a million espresso coffee machines, and also sent countless kids on the road. This was of course due in part to the media, the arch-opportunists. They know a story when they see one, and the Beat movement was a story, and a big one . . . The Beat literary movement came at exactly the right time and said something that millions of people of all nationalities all over the world were waiting to hear. You can't tell anybody anything he doesn't know already. The alienation, the restlessness, the dissatisfaction were already there waiting when Kerouac pointed out the road. ~ William S. Burroughs

If the October days were a cordial like the sub-acids of fruit, these are a tonic like the wine of iron. Drink deep or be careful how you taste this December vintage. The first sip may chill, but a full draught warms and invigorates. ~ John Burroughs

The church is not a campus but a community. Pastors are not CEOs; they are shepherds. ~ Dillon Burroughs

Know who I am? ... 'Good Bye Mister' is my name ... 'Wind and Dust' is my name ... 'Never Happened' is my name ... ~ William S. Burroughs

Whether we live in poverty or prosperity, we can still live generously. ~ Dillon Burroughs

The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. ~ John Burroughs

Righteousness and generosity are inseparable. The person whose heart longs for God also longs to give to others. ~ Dillon Burroughs

I could not blame them, for I knew how strong a hold a creed, however ridiculous it may be, may gain upon an otherwise intelligent people. ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs

The world tells us to find the power within ourselves. God's Word teaches otherwise. It is the Lord's power that gives the ability to overcome. ~ Dillon Burroughs

Why, I never did believe it, ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs

To stop drinking, all you have to do is sit. In 100 percent of the documented cases of alcoholism worldwide, the people who recovered all shared one thing in common, no matter how they did it: They didn't do it. ~ Augusten Burroughs

[Arab peoples] are stuck back thousands of years and they think they're going to get out with a TV set. ~ William S. Burroughs

May we show great concern to those of great concern to God. ~ Dillon Burroughs

That old feeling is still in my leaking heart. ~ William S. Burroughs

Let us live not only to serve God ourselves; let us live to help our children and their children live for God. ~ Dillon Burroughs

Did you ever stop to consider that God made us to remake us? He created us so we would seek Him and be transformed by Him. ~ Dillon Burroughs

Let the people who want to have kids, have them. And let the rest of us spend the extra money on ourselves. Being gay doesn't make you a bad person. Not wanting kids doesn't make you a bad person. Perhaps crushing the bones in one little girl's hand makes you a bad person, but that was an accident. ~ Augusten Burroughs

The Ancient Egyptians postulated seven souls."

Top soul (Vicarious), and the first to leave at the moment of death, is Ren the Secret name. This corresponds to my Director. He directs the film of your life from conception to death. The Secret Name is the title of your film. When you die, that's where Ren came in.

Second soul (Jambi), and second one off the sinking ship, is Sekem: Energy, Power. LIGHT. The Director gives the orders, Sekem presses the right buttons.

Number three (Wings/Days) is Khu, the Guardian Angel. He, she or it is third man out...depicted as flying away across a full moon, a bird with luminous wings and head of light. The sort of thing you might see on a screen in an Indian restaurant in Panama. The Khu is responsible for the subject and can be injured in his defense - but not permanently, since the first three souls are eternal. They go back to Heaven for another vessel. The four remaining souls must take their chances with the subject in the land of the dead.

Number four (The Pot) is Ba, the Heart, often treacherous. This is a hawk's body with your face on it, shrunk down to the size of a fist. Many a hero has been brought down, like Samson, by a perfidious Ba.

Number five (L.C., Lost Keys, Rosetta Stoned) is Ka, the double, most closely associated with the subject. The Ka, which usually reaches adolescence at the time of bodily death, is the only reliable guide through the Land of the Dead to the We ~ William S. Burroughs

A noble heart is a thankful heart that loves to acknowledge whenever it has received any mercy. ~ Jeremiah Burroughs

It was time to leave. He was insufferable, had toilet problems, looked demented to begin with, and now he was the accomplice to a cat killer. Yet did I leave? No, I sat there. And I thought, What has happened to me? Why am I not rising up off the sofa? Why am I not leaving? ~ Augusten Burroughs

Out of the closets and into the museums, libraries, architectural monuments, concert halls, bookstores, recording studios and film studios of the world. Everything belongs to the inspired and dedicated thief…. Words, colors, light, sounds, stone, wood, bronze belong to the living artist. They belong to anyone who can use them. Loot the Louvre! A bas l'originalité, the sterile and assertive ego that imprisons us as it creates. Vive le vol-pure, shameless, total. We are not responsible. Steal anything in sight. ~ William S. Burroughs

I never get sick of writing my own stories because there's a certain comfort in knowing you will never run out of material. It's relaxing, actually, to write. ~ Augusten Burroughs