Quote

I think there are innumerable gods. What we on earth call God is a little tribal God who has made an awful mess. Certainly forces operating through human consciousness control events.

William S. Burroughs

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William S. Burroughs
Age: 83 †
Born: 1914
Born: February 5
Died: 1997
Died: August 11
Essayist
Novelist
Painter
Photographer
Poet
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
St. Louis
Missouri
William Seward Burroughs II
Uilʹi︠a︡m Berrouz
William Lee
William Burroughs
Ouiliam Baroouz
William Seward Burroughs
Willy Lee
William S. (William Seward) Burroughs
Human
Consciousness
Operating
Humans
Control
Gods
Made
Call
Mess
Think
Religion
Awful
Thinking
Force
Forces
Earth
God
Littles
Certainly
Tribal
Little
Events
Innumerable

More quotes by William S. Burroughs

Image
Like most qualities, cuteness is delineated by what it isn't. Most people aren't cute at all, or if so they quickly outgrow their cuteness ... Elegance, grace, delicacy, beauty, and a lack of self-consciousness: a creature who knows he is cute soon isn't.
William S. Burroughs
Image
If the soft machine works, don't fix it. If it works, don't fix it.
William S. Burroughs
Image
How far would people get in physics if discovery was described as disgusting - Your formula is disgusting and filthy? Not very far.
William S. Burroughs
Image
Who was I? The stranger was footsteps in the snow a long time ago.
William S. Burroughs
Image
Danger is a very rare commodity in these times, monopolized by intelligence agencies and stuntmen.
William S. Burroughs
Image
Junk is not, like alcohol or weed, a means to increased enjoyment of life. Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life.
William S. Burroughs
Image
Forward steps are made by giving up old armor because words are built into you - in the soft typewriter of the womb you do not realize the word-armor you carry for example, when you read this page your eyes move irresistibly from left to right following the words that you have been accustomed to.
William S. Burroughs
Image
Never interfere in a girl and boy fight.
William S. Burroughs
Image
In homosexual sex you know exactly what the other person is feeling, so you are identifying with the other person completely. In heterosexual sex you have no idea what the other person is feeling.
William S. Burroughs
Image
That old feeling is still in my leaking heart.
William S. Burroughs
Image
[Arab peoples] are stuck back thousands of years and they think they're going to get out with a TV set.
William S. Burroughs
Image
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
Image
Hemingway said: 'It don't come anymore.' So where did it go?
William S. Burroughs
Image
Cheat your landlord if you can -- and must -- but do not try to shortchange the Muse.
William S. Burroughs
Image
I've listened to and know Allen Ginsberg music and met him a couple of times, but I don't have any strong statements to make.
William S. Burroughs
Image
I bear my burden proudly for all to see, to conquer prejudice and ignorance and hate with knowledge and sincerity and love. Whenever you are threatened by a hostile presence, you emit a thick cloud of love like an octopus squirts out ink.
William S. Burroughs
Image
Communication must become total and conscious before we can stop it.
William S. Burroughs
Image
When you get to be my age there are more and more people you have known that you miss. Brion [Gysin], Antony Balch, Ian Summerville are ones I think of right away I was quite close to.
William S. Burroughs
Image
For years I wondered why dreams are so often dull when related, and this morning I find the answer, which is very simple - like most answers, you have always known it: No context ... like a stuffed animal set on the floor of a bank.
William S. Burroughs
Image
For seven days she lay in bed looking sullenly at the ceiling as though resenting the death she had cultivated for so many years. Like some people who cannot vomit despite horrible nausea, she lay there unable to die, resisting death as she had resisted life, frozen with resentment of process and change.
William S. Burroughs