William S. Burroughs · 214 pages
Rating: (8.8K votes)
“I began to get a feeling (...) of being the only sane man in a nut house. It doesn't make you feel superior but depressed and scared, because there is nobody you can contact.”
― William S. Burroughs, quote from And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
“All over America, people were pulling credentials out of their pockets and sticking them under someone else's nose to prove they had been somewhere or done something. And I thought someday everyone in America will suddenly jump up and say, 'I don't take any shit!' and start pushing and cursing and clawing at the man next to him.”
― William S. Burroughs, quote from And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
“Yeah," I said, "but you're an artist. You don't believe in decency and honesty and gratitude. Where shall we eat?”
― William S. Burroughs, quote from And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
“But you're an artist. You don't believe in decency and honesty and gratitude.”
― William S. Burroughs, quote from And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
“I had the feeling that all over America such stupid arguments were taking place on street corners and in bars and restaurants. All over America, people were pulling credentials out of their pockets and sticking them under someone else's nose to prove they had been somewhere or done something. And I thought someday everyone in America will suddenly jump up and say "I don't take any shit!" and start pushing and cursing and clawing at the man next to him.”
― William S. Burroughs, quote from And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
“...both of us had a lot to say, but there was no room to say it in, we were so tense and close.”
― William S. Burroughs, quote from And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
“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.”
― William S. Burroughs, quote from And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
“As I was walking past Tony Pastor's I saw Pat, the lesbian bouncer, throw a drunken young sailor out into the street. The sailor said, "That place is full of fucking queers." He swung at the air and nearly fell on his face, then he staggered away, muttering to himself.”
― William S. Burroughs, quote from And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
“He had a third martini. He looked at me intently and took hold of my arm. 'Look', he said. 'You're a fish in a pond. It's drying up. You have to mutate into an amphibian, but someone keeps hanging on to you and telling you to stay in the pond, everything's going to be all right.”
― William S. Burroughs, quote from And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
“–Levántate y date una ducha, cabrón.
–¿Qué pasa?
–A mí no me vengas con qué pasa. Anoche fumaste marihuana.
–Pero no era nada buena, de todos modos –dije, y me fui al baño.”
― William S. Burroughs, quote from And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
“There was something virile in her attitude toward tragedy, as though she were defying God to knock off the chip He Himself had placed on her shoulder.”
― William S. Burroughs, quote from And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
“People in bars are always claiming to be boxers, hoping thereby to ward off attack, like a black snake will vibrate its tail in leaves and try to impersonate a rattlesnake.”
― William S. Burroughs, quote from And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
“I got up the next morning with morphine hangover. I poured myself a large glass of cold milk, which is an antidote for morphine.”
― William S. Burroughs, quote from And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
“A typical modern Puritan, she was able to believe in sin without believing in God. In fact, she felt there was something soft and sinful about believing in God. She rejected such indulgence like an indecent proposal.
- William S. Burroughs, And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks”
― William S. Burroughs, quote from And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
“But color—like sound and scent—is just an invention of the human mind responding to waves and particles that are moving in particular patterns through the universe—and poets should not thank nature but themselves for the beauty and the rainbows they see around them. While”
― Victoria Finlay, quote from Color: A Natural History of the Palette
“Education is experience, and the essence of experience is self-reliance.”
― T.H. White, quote from The Once and Future King (The Once and Future King, #1-5)
“Matthew would not like this, she had said. He would have liked it even less had he know how much Strike had liked it.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from Career of Evil
“I was a woman and did not yet think of myself as a writer. I was a mapmaker.”
― Shay Youngblood, quote from Black Girl in Paris
“I know that every atom of life in all this universe is bound up together. I know that pebble cannot be thrown into the ocean without distrubing every drop of water in the sea. I know that every life is inextricably mixed and woven with every other life. I know that every influence, conscious and unconscious, acts and reacts on every living organism, and that no one can fix the blame.
I know that all life is a series of infinite chances, which sometimes result one way and sometimes another. I have not the infinite wisdom that can fathom it, neither has any other human brain. But I do know that in back of it is a power that made it, that power alone can tell, and if there is no power, then it is an infinite chance which man cannot solve.”
― Marianne Wiggins, quote from Evidence of Things Unseen
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