"Squatting on old bones and excrement and rusty iron, in a white blaze of heat, a panorama of naked idiots stretches to the horizon. Complete silence - their speech centres are destroyed - except for the crackle of sparks and the popping of singed flesh as they apply electrodes up and down the spine. White smoke of burning flesh hangs in the motionless air. A group of children have tied an idiot to a post with barbed wire and built a fire between his legs and stand watching with bestial curiosity as the flames lick his thighs. His flesh jerks in the fire with insect agony."

Violence, Cruelty, Horror, Suffering

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"Squatting on old bones and excrement and rusty iron, in a white blaze of heat, a panorama of naked idiots stretches to the horizon. Complete silence - their speech centres are destroyed - except for the crackle of sparks and the popping of singed flesh as they apply electrodes up and down the spine. White smoke of burning flesh hangs in the motionless air. A group of children have tied an idiot to a post with barbed wire and built a fire between his legs and stand watching with bestial curiosity as the flames lick his thighs. His flesh jerks in the fire with insect agony."

Exlpore more Violence quotes

"We are all a part of a culture of violence that dominates every aspect of our lives."

Bryant McGill, American Poet

Violence, Truth, Regret, Wisdom, Life

"We live in a culture of violence."

Bryant McGill, American Poet

Violence, Truth, Regret, Wisdom, Life

"Was there ever a war where only one side bled?"

George R. R. Martin, American Author

Violence, War, Pain, Blood, Loss

"Modern consumer life is a form of extreme passive violence against all people."

Bryant McGill, American Poet

Violence, Truth, Wisdom, Power

"Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary."

Mahatma Gandhi, Indian Leader

Violence, Victory, Defeat, Peace

"Violence isn't a Democrat or Republican problem. It's an American problem, requiring an American solution."

DaShanne Stokes, American Author

Violence, Unity, Responsibility, Society

"Apparently, dancing for him and throwing herself at him weren't enough. Apparently, she had to nearly commit murder to arouse him enough to attack her."

Gena Showalter, American Novelist

Violence, Obsession, Manipulation, Control

"Whenever I get that sad, depressed feeling, I go out and kill a policeman."

P. G. Wodehouse, English Writer

Violence, Humor, Darkness, Sadness, Emotion

"Do you know what I think?" Marcone said."You think we should shoot Nicodemus in the back at the first opportunity and let Michael dismember him.""Yes."I drew my gun. "Okay."

Jim Butcher, American Author

Violence, Murder, Strategy, Conflict

"I was no longer troubled when he pulled out a machete in a crowded bar, tried to pick up schoolgirls, or threatened to scalp us, then rip off our heads and scoop out our brains."

Tahir Shah, British Author

Violence, Danger, Adaptation, Fear, Awareness

Explore more quotes by William S. Burroughs

"I don't know what falling in love for me is. The concept of romantic love arose in the Middle Ages. Now remember, the Arabs don't even have a word for love-that is, a word for love apart from physical attraction or sex. And this separation of love and sex is a western concept, a Christian concept. As to what falling in love means, I'm uncertain. Love, well, it means simply physical attraction and liking a person at the same time."

Love

"Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it 'creative observation.' Creative viewing."

Creativity

"Oh be careful! There they go again!" said the old queen as his string broke spilling his balls over the floor.... "Stop them will you, James, you worthless old shit! Don't just stand there and let the master's balls roll into the coal-bin!"

Humor

"We intend to destroy all dogmatic verbal systems."

Knowledge

"Evidence indicates that cats were first tamed in Egypt. The Egyptians stored grain, which attracted rodents, which attracted cats. (No evidence that such a thing happened with the Mayans, though a number of wild cats are native to the area.) I don't think this is accurate. It is certainly not the whole story. Cats didn't start as mousers. Weasels and snakes and dogs are more efficient as rodent-control agents. I postulate that cats started as psychic companions, as Familiars, and have never deviated from this function."

Animals

"When I become death. Death is the seed from which I grow."

Mortality

"There are no innocent bystanders ... what are they doing there in the first place?"

Accountability

"Most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can't mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus has."

Business

"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."

Aspiration

"Junk turns the user into a plant. Plants do not feel pain since pain has no function in a stationary organism. Junk is a pain killer. A plant has no libido in the human or animal sense. Junk replaces the sex drive. Seeding is the sex of the plant and the function of opium is to delay seeding.Perhaps the intense discomfort of withdrawal is the transition from plant back to animal, from a painless, sexless, timeless state back to sex and pain and time, from death back to life."

Addiction