America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil before the settlers, before the Indians. The evil is there waiting.
William S. BurroughsMany of my characters first came through to me as voices. That's why I use a tape recorder.
William S. BurroughsOur national drug is alcohol. We tend to regard the use of any other drug with special horror.
William S. BurroughsIt is to be remembered that all art is magical in origin - music, sculpture, writing, painting - and by magical I mean intended to produce very definite results. Paintings were originally formulae to make what is painted happen. Art is not an end in itself, any more than Einstein's matter-into-energy formulae is an end in itself. Like all formulae, art was originally FUNCTIONAL, intended to make things happen, the way an atom bomb happens from Einstein's formulae.
William S. Burroughs