What a horror it would have been if the world was real, because if the world was real, it would be immortal.

Burroughs is the greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift.

"What do you want out of life?" I asked, and I used to ask that all the time of girls.

We lay on our backs looking at the ceiling and wondering what God had wrought when he made life so sad and disinclined.

This is the story of America. Everybody's doing what they think they're supposed to do.

In those days he really didn't know what he was talking about; that is to say, he was a young jailkid all hung-up on the wonderful possibilities of becoming a real intellectual, and he liked to talk in the tone and using the words, but in a jumbled way, that he had heard from 'real intellectuals.

all I wanted to do was sneak out into the night and disappear somewhere, and go and find out what everybody was doing all over the country.