47 Burroughs Quotes
Following is our list of the most famous burroughs quotations and slogans. We've compiled this selection of inspirational burroughs quotes. Hopefully, these burroughs quotes will keep you motivated not only during hard times but to expand your burroughs knowledge!
Quick Jump To
Short Burroughs Quotes
- when I become death. Death is the seed from which I grow. — William S. Burroughs
- Origami Striptease reads like William S. Burroughs and Djuna Barnes howling at a brutal paper moon. — Susan Stinson
- I like simple writing. I'd rather read Hemingway than Burroughs. — Yannis Philippakis
- Burroughs is the greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift. — Jack Kerouac
- Burroughs is crap. Crap. — Ray Bradbury
- I was suckered in by the myth of the man [ William Burroughs] as much as by his work. — Oliver Harris
- Burroughs's voice is hard, derisive, inventive, free, funny, serious, poetic, indelibly American. — Joan Didion
- Who is more real? Homer or Ulysses? Shakespeare or Hamlet? Burroughs or Tarzan? — Robert A. Heinlein
People Writing About Burroughs
| Name | Quotes | Likes |
|---|---|---|
 William S. Burroughs |
335 | 2843 |
 Yannis Philippakis |
12 | 25 |
 Jack Kerouac |
460 | 3273 |
 Ray Bradbury |
774 | 3847 |
 Joan Didion |
234 | 947 |
 Robert A. Heinlein |
658 | 4815 |
More Burroughs Quotes
John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities? — Emma Goldman
When I was young, I knew William Burroughs really well. And William's secret desire, which he never quite did, was to write a straightforward detective novel. — Patti Smith
I think it was when I ran into Kerouac and Burroughs - when I was 17 - that I realized I was talking through an empty skull... I wasn't thinking my own thoughts or saying my own thoughts. — Allen Ginsberg
American naturalist John Burroughs put it, “A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else. — Jeff Olson
I wasn't trying to be an outlaw writer. I never heard of that term; somebody else made it up. But we were all outside the law: Kerouac, Miller, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kesey; I didn't have a gauge as to who was the worst outlaw. I just recognized allies: my people. — Hunter S. Thompson
As I was in the air, the ball took a bad hop and caromed behind me, but I was able to catch it with my bare hand. I hit the ground, bounced back up, and threw Burroughs out at first. — Ozzie Smith
What we have here is a rousing boy's adventure story, adapted from stories that Edgar Rice Burroughs cranked out for early pulp magazines. They lacked the visceral appeal of his Tarzan stories, which inspired an estimated 89 movies; amazingly, this is the first John Carter movie, but it is intended to foster a franchise and will probably succeed. — Roger Ebert
Burroughs called his greatest novel Naked Lunch, by which he meant it's what you see on the end of a fork. He's a writer of enormous richness whose books are a kind of attempt to blow up this cozy conspiracy, to allow us to see what's on the end of the fork . . . the truth. — J. G. Ballard
As a young child I wanted to be a writer because writers were rich and famous. They lounged around Singapore and Rangoon smoking opium in a yellow pongee silk suit. They sniffed cocaine in Mayfair and they penetrated forbidden swamps with a faithful native boy and lived in the native quarter of Tangier smoking hashish and languidly caressing a pet gazelle. — William S. Burroughs
People talk about this often in the art world. The press releases have reached a level of absurdity and creativity - creative absurdity - that has completely detached from its intended object. It's left reality behind long ago. It's like something out of William Burroughs. — David Salle
[william] Burroughs, incidentally, took up the slogan that we are "Here to go", which contradicts the tendency in Eastern mysticism to advocate staying where you are because there's nowhere to go anyway. I feel conflicted on this one. — Quentin S. Crisp
I really think [William] Burroughs was onto something here, when he said, "Dreams are a biologic necessity and your lifeline into space." — Quentin S. Crisp
I enjoyed The Mirage by M. Ruff. I'm reading Edgar Rice Burrough's Princess Of Mars right and loving it. — Paul S. Kemp
All of William S. Burroughs friends pushed it forward and introduced me to one another. I was able to enter into that beat family for a while and document it. — Yony Leyser
After I got kicked out of CalArts, I moved to Lawrence Kansas where my sister lived. I began working on A William S. Burroughs documentary. I had no idea it would turn into such a big film. — Yony Leyser
Authors and artists are still afraid of breaking away as far as [William Burroughs] did... And he did it in the 50s! — Yony Leyser
[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
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
I wish I had more control, more like Edgar Rice Burroughs had, but I'm a realist, too. I work in television. I don't know that I would want to spend the rest of my life controlling my characters. — Gene Roddenberry
Cats of all kinds weave in and out of the text; Burroughs has clearly taken to them in a big way in his old age and seems torn between a fear they will betray him into sentimentality and a resigned acceptance that a man can't be ironic all the time. — Angela Carter
Burroughs is the greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift. . . . The net result of Naked Lunch will be to make people shudder at their own lies, will be to make them open up and be straight with one another. Swift and Rabelais and Sterne accomplished a step in that direction, and Burroughs another. — Jack Kerouac
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
Skullcrack City messes with your mind the way William Burroughs or a bellyful of hallucinogens will do. I'm a longtime fan of Johnson. A master of derangement, he's been bringing it for years. This time, though, it's different. He's burst into the clear and is taking seven-league strides across the literary landscape. — Laird Barron
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
I was taken by William Burroughs’ presence and intelligence from the first time I was introduced to him, by Lester Bangs in 1975. He was thrilling to listen to. When you heard him speak, you felt that you were privy to such a rare mind. Even in small-talk, he spoke with perfect economy of language. His shoots with me were very collaborative and it was an incredible opportunity to be able to photograph him over the course of twenty years. — Kate Simon
Like many nonconformist and beat generation writers, William S. Burroughs takes the outcasts of society as his theme. — William S. Burroughs
Norman Mailer thinks William Burroughs is a genius, which I think is ludicrous beyond words. I don't think William Burroughs has an ounce of talent. — Truman Capote
With 'Avatar,' I thought, Forget all these chick flicks and do a classic guys' adventure movie, something in the Edgar Rice Burroughs mold, like John Carter of Mars - a soldier goes to Mars. — James Cameron
There is no right or wrong reading of Naked Lunch, though some readings are more common, and thus Burroughs commercial is not the issue. — Rick Moody
All I wanted and all Neal wanted and all anybody wanted was some kind of penetration into the heart of things where, like in a womb, we could curl up and sleep the ecstatic sleep that Burroughs was experiencing with a good big mainline shot of M. and advertising executives in NY were experiencing with twelve Scotch & Sodas in Stouffers before they made the drunkard's train to Westchester---but without hangovers. — Jack Kerouac
Hollis thought he looked like William Burroughs, minus the bohemian substrate (or perhaps the methadone). Like someone who'd be invited quail shooting with the vice-president, though too careful to get himself shot. — William Gibson
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of burroughs quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about burroughs to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of burroughs quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.
Embed HTML Link
Copy and paste this HTML code in your webpage