William S. Burroughs Quotes & Sayings (Page 7)

“I wasn't exposed to art as I was growing up, and can't recall the first time I saw a work of art. However, I remember very clearly a vision I had of a little green reindeer when I was a child, and visions emanate from the same mythical area where painting resides. Whatever the reason, I immediately felt comfortable working with visual materials.”

“Speaking for myself, art differs from writing in that I never know what I'm going to paint until I paint it, so it's almost like automatic writing. A writer, on the other hand, can't help but know what he's going to write, because the activity demands a degree of premeditation.”

“If everyone is to be made responsible for everything they do, you must extend responsibility beyond the level of conscious intention.”

“Anything that can be done chemically can be done by other means.”

“Hemingway was a prisoner of his style. No one can talk like the characters in Hemingway except the characters in Hemingway. His style in the wildest sense finally killed him.”

“Most serious writers refuse to make themselves available to the things that technology is doing. I've never been able to understand this sort of fear.”