William S. Burroughs

“Gentle reader, the Fountain of Youth is radioactive, and those who imbibe its poisonous heavy waters will suffer the hideous fate of decaying metal. Yet almost without exception, the wretched idiot inhabitants of our benighted planet would gulp down this radioactive excrement if it were offered.”

“Visual art and writing don't exist on an aesthetic hierarchy that positions one above the other, because each is capable of things the other can't do at all. Sometimes one picture is equal to 30 pages of discourse, just as there are things images are completely incapable of communicating.”

“My relationships with my cats has saved me from a deadly, pervasive ignorance.”

“Thinking is not enough. There is no final enough of wisdom, experience - any... thing.”

“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.”

“Jesus Christ said 'by their fruits ye shall know them,' not by their disclaimers.”

“Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.”

“The word has not been recognized as a virus because it has achieved a state of stable symbiosis with the host.”

“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!”

“I began to get a feeling (...) of being the only sane man in a nut house. It doesn't make you feel superior but depressed and scared, because there is nobody you can contact.”

“Black magic operates most effectively in preconscious, marginal areas. Casual curses are the most effective.”

“You must learn to exist with no religion, no country, no allies. You must learn to live alone in silence.”

“You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.”

“Nothing is true, everything is permitted.”

“Paranoia is just having the right information.”