A Quote by William S. Burroughs

[Arab peoples] are stuck back thousands of years and they think they're going to get out with a TV set. — © William S. Burroughs
[Arab peoples] are stuck back thousands of years and they think they're going to get out with a TV set.
I think the Arab world has no personality cult situation going on that they have in much of the Western world, South America included. They are a culture of words and religion, and you won't see manycsa charismatic people on Al Jazeera, except for the ones who are now learned presenters. You see Arab leaders getting on TV - which was very hard for me working out how to do the part, since Arab leaders are looking somnambulant, staring into their microphone, almost as if someone's got a hand up their back.
If you look back, you get stuck in a year. I've seen rappers and singers get stuck in 2002 or 2005, and they can't get out.
We've made so much progress in the last 100 years, and I think it's easy for us to think that women in the workplace, women in politics, isn't that big of a deal. And when you step back and look at it from the scope of human history, from thousands and thousands of years - it's a radical idea for a woman to be in charge.
Oh, we've had our share of hotels bein' smashed and all, but that was a long time ago. You get lousy room service... I mean, there's no use throwin' a TV set out the window for the sake of throwin' a TV set out the window. But if you get a lousy picture then you have an excuse
I think I had a tendency to get stuck inside my head and go to some very dark places in my mind, and get stuck there. I couldn't see a way to get out.
I don't believe in writer's block. I'll get stuck, but being stuck, I'll still write a verse. If you know where you're going, you can always start from there and work your way back.
There is a gulf between the Arab peoples and Arab intellectuals.
I think all of us set out to try and reach as many people. That's the whole point of being in a band: trying to get your music out there. So, any opportunity to do that, within reason. We're informed about where our music is going to be used; we get to say yes or no. There are things we can turn down, and there are things we can agree to. When it comes to movies and stuff like that, it's great for us. I don't think it's selling out. Maybe 10 or 20 years ago it was seen as selling out, but nowadays I think it's the only way to get your music out there.
The beauty of Broadway is that if I'm 60 or 70 years old, if they'll accept me back, I can go back. So I think for right now I'm going to focus on the music--it's the new baby--and see how it's going to work out, and then maybe in a few years maybe I'll go back.
I've seen too many people who struggle financially who save thousands of dollars and go on a one year trip. And then they come back out of money, thirty years old, and back to living with their parents and saying 'I'm back to getting any job possible to get more money for travel.'
The Arab Spring I think we will look back whether it's two years, five years, ten or fifteen. And say it's a good thing.
I'm vile and perverted. I'm obsessed and deranged. I've existed for years but very little has changed. I'm the tool of the government and industry too. For I'm destined to rule and regulate you. You may think I'm pernicious, but you can't look away. I'll make you think I'm delicious with the stuff that I say. I'm the best you can get... have you guessed me yet? I'm the slime oozing out of your TV set.
It is hard to know exactly when the Arab Spring, a phrase used to describe the beginning of the Arab peoples' demand for democracy and human-rights reform, started.
It was in our power to set high price for our blood, a price too high for the Arab community, the Arab army, or the Arab governments to think it worth paying.
My sense is that we are missing a huge part of the human story. I think it's possible, indeed probable, that we are a species with amnesia; that we've lost the record of our story going back thousands of years before so-called history began, and I think that if we could go back to that dark epoch, we would discover many astounding things about ourselves.
I miss aspects of being in the Arab world - the language - and there is a tranquility in these cities with great rivers. Whether it's Cairo or Baghdad, you sit there and you think, 'This river has flown here for thousands of years.' There are magical moments in these places.
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