William S. Burroughs Quotes

Writing is an amazing place to hide, to go into the rabbit hole, and pull the trap door down over your head.

I collected pictures and I drew pictures and I looked at the pictures by myself. And because no one else ever saw them, the pictures were perfect and true. They were alive.

The best part of being a writer for me is immersing myself in a fictional world, which is the opposite of being on social media. At the same time, if no one ever read my work, if I was writing solely for myself, I bet it would be lonely and a lot less fun.

It's certainly true that when I was young, writing seemed to me so important that I would have sacrificed almost anything to it ... Because I thought of the world in which I wrote -- the world I created -- as somehow much more enormously alive than the world I was actually living in.

It's a wonderful thing to be able to create your own world whenever you want to.

I had a strong propensity, which I still have, to be invisible. In grade school, I'd try to disappear and become formless. I lived in a very imaginary world. I loved poetry and wrote my first novel when I was 9. It was about a little girl and the people she met in the woods.

I would advise you to write, my dear friend, because with your active nature, solitude is simply intolerable to you, and after some time your solitude would become perhaps attractive if you were to people it with creatures of your own fancy.

I can gabble on now, but I couldn't when I was a kid, so I spent a lot of time in my own head on the moors by myself. It felt like writing was the right way to express myself.

While all the other kids were out playing ball and stuff, I used to stay in my room and imagine that there was a camera in the wall. And I used to really believe that I was putting on a television show and that it was going out to somewhere in the world.

I get caught up in my bubble of reading, writing, or music.

I don't like getting out when I could be painting. And when I'm painting, I don't want anybody else around.

My favorite thing is to be alone in a room with a blank paper in front of me and the time to fill it.

Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all the others were making ships.

I just love the idea of going into a room and creating something by myself.

I try to indulge my muse whenever I am able to get away from it all.

When you're writing, it's a very solitary job. It's you and your word processor and a cup of tea.

I used to be locked up in my bedroom for hours, just listening to music, making some of my own, doodling and writing poetry.

This creating? It's my passion.

But I'm more of a recluse when it comes down to being a writer and being a creative person rather than being a celebrity.

I took a great deal of pleasure in it, and I still feel nostalgic about it. However, I felt that it had led me to live in a parallel world of pure invention, shut inside my solitude. Naturally, it was precisely for that purpose that it was made and that was why I took pleasure in it, but I wanted to regain body and roots.

There's no one on the island telling them they're not good enough, so they just go ahead and sing and paint and write.

The great thing about writing is, if you don't like the world, we'll create a different one.

Writing has always allowed me to escape. I was a very lonely child. Because I was very socially awkward, I would always have trouble making friends. And so reading and writing allowed me to have friends and to have an active imaginary life that really sort of kept me sane.

Writing is really freeing because it's the only part of the process where it's just you and the characters and you are by yourself in a room and you can just hash it out. There are no limitations.

Few pleasures are greater than knowing you can close your door, ignore the world and create your own.