“I began to get a feeling familiar to me from my bartending days of being the only sane man in a nuthouse. It doesn't make you feel superior but depressed and scared, because there is nobody you can contact.”

American writer and visual artist

William S. Burroughs was an American writer and visual artist, widely associated with the Beat Generation and postmodern literature. He became known for fiction that pushed against conventional form and voice. His work is often experimental, with unreliable narrators and semi-autobiographical material shaped by his experience of drug addiction. He also helped popularize the cut-up technique with Brion Gysin. Across his fiction and his life, recurring interests included mysticism, the occult, and magical themes.