A Quote by Oliver Harris

I tell this anecdote with tongue in cheek at the start of my book William Burroughs and the Secret of Fascination, but my academic involvement with Burroughs was entirely due to my tutor at Oxford, Peter Conrad. I was discussing with him the idea of staying on to do graduate work and when I tossed the name of Burroughs into the conversation - well, he let it fall loudly onto the floor, and proceeded to cross himself as if warding off an evil spirit. Since I was very ambivalent about an academic career in any case, that decided it for me.

Oliver Harris

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About Academic Ambivalent Anecdote Any Book Burroughs Career Case Cheek Conversation Cross Decided Discussing Due Entirely Evil Fall Fascination Floor Graduate Him Himself Idea Involvement Loudly Me Name Off Onto Oxford Peter Secret Since Spirit Start Staying Tell The Secret Of Tongue Tongue In Cheek Tossed Tutor Very Well William Work

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Oliver Harris

Norman Mailer thinks William Burroughs is a genius, which I think is ludicrous beyond words. I don't think William Burroughs has an ounce of talent.

Truman Capote

When I was young, I knew William Burroughs really well. And William's secret desire, which he never quite did, was to write a straightforward detective novel.

Patti Smith

I wrestled Jordan Burroughs two times - Jordan Burroughs had a hell of a time trying to take me down. I stopped his double leg numerous times. And he also, probably, fractured my sternum - from me trying to stop him.

Justin Gaethje

I knew William Burroughs really well, and I was always star struck being around him. I adored him.

Patti Smith

I really think [William] Burroughs was onto something here, when he said, "Dreams are a biologic necessity and your lifeline into space."

Quentin S. Crisp

Burroughs is the greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift. . . . The net result of Naked Lunch will be to make people shudder at their own lies, will be to make them open up and be straight with one another. Swift and Rabelais and Sterne accomplished a step in that direction, and Burroughs another.

Jack Kerouac

I was suckered in by the myth of the man [ William Burroughs] as much as by his work.

Oliver Harris

I met William Burroughs in 1971. I got his address through a magazine and went to London to spend time with him.

Genesis P-Orridge

[william] Burroughs, incidentally, took up the slogan that we are "Here to go", which contradicts the tendency in Eastern mysticism to advocate staying where you are because there's nowhere to go anyway. I feel conflicted on this one.

Quentin S. Crisp

As a graduate student at Oxford in 1963, I began writing about books in revolutionary France, helping to found the discipline of book history. I was in my academic corner writing about Enlightenment ideals when the Internet exploded the world of academic communication in the 1990s.

Robert Darnton

All of William S. Burroughs friends pushed it forward and introduced me to one another. I was able to enter into that beat family for a while and document it.

Yony Leyser

After I got kicked out of CalArts, I moved to Lawrence Kansas where my sister lived. I began working on A William S. Burroughs documentary. I had no idea it would turn into such a big film.

Yony Leyser

Every writer from Montaigne to William S. Burroughs has pasted and cut from previous work. Every artist, whether it's Warhol or, you know, Dangermouse or whoever.

David Shields

Origami Striptease reads like William S. Burroughs and Djuna Barnes howling at a brutal paper moon.

Susan Stinson

Like many nonconformist and beat generation writers, William S. Burroughs takes the outcasts of society as his theme.

William S. Burroughs

I was taken by William Burroughs’ presence and intelligence from the first time I was introduced to him, by Lester Bangs in 1975. He was thrilling to listen to. When you heard him speak, you felt that you were privy to such a rare mind. Even in small-talk, he spoke with perfect economy of language. His shoots with me were very collaborative and it was an incredible opportunity to be able to photograph him over the course of twenty years.

Kate Simon

A Quote by Oliver Harris

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