“The junk merchant doesn't sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client.”

— William S. Burroughs

"Letter from a Master Addict to Dangerous Drugs", written in 1956, first published in The British Journal of Addiction, Vol. 52, No. 2 (January 1957), p. 1 and later used as footnotes in Naked Lunch

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The junk merchant doesn't sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve a…" by William S. Burroughs?

William S. Burroughs photo

William S. Burroughs110

American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, a… 1914–1997

Related quotes

“The junk merchant doesn't sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client”

William S. Burroughs book Naked Lunch

Introduction
Naked Lunch (1959)

“The difference between marketing and selling is more than semantic. Selling focuses on the needs of the seller; marketing on the needs of the buyer. Selling is preoccupied with the seller’s need to convert his product into cash; marketing with the idea of satisfying the needs of the customer by means of the product and the whole cluster of things associated with creating, delivering and finally consuming it.”

Theodore Levitt (1925–2006) American economist and professor at Harvard Business School

Source: Marketing Myopia, 1960, p. 10

“[T]he artist sells the work of his brush and in this he is a merchant. The writer sells to any who will buy, let his ideas be what they will. The teacher sells his knowledge of books—often in too low a market—to those who would have this knowledge passed on to the young.
The doctor... too is a merchant. His stock-in-trade is his intimate knowledge of the physical man and his skill to prevent or remove disabilities. ...The lawyer sometimes knows the laws of the land and sometimes does not, but he sells his legal language, often accompanied by common sense, to the multitude who have not yet learned that a contentious nature may squander quite as successfully as the spendthrift. The statesman sells his knowledge of men and affairs, and the spoken or written exposition of his principles of Government; and he receives in return the satisfaction of doing what he can for his nation, and occasionally wins as well a niche in its temple of fame.
The man possessing many lands, he especially would be a merchant... and sell, but his is a merchandise which too often nowadays waits in vain for the buyer. The preacher, the lecturer, the actor, the estate agent, the farmer, the employé, all, all are merchants, all have something to dispose of at a profit to themselves, and the dignity of the business is decided by the manner in which they conduct the sale.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge (1858–1947) America born English businessman

The Romance of Commerce (1918), Concerning Commerce

“Happiness is the indication that man has found the answer to the problem of human existence: the productive realization of his potentialities and thus, simultaneously, being one with the world and preserving the integrity of his self. In spending his energy productively he increases his powers, he "burns without being consumed.“”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Source: Man for Himself (1947), p.189

“Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all he has. It is the pearl of great price to by which the merchant will sell all his goods.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Costly Grace, p. 45.

“If a product doesn't sell, raise the price.”

Reese Palley (1922–2015)

“779. He that marries for wealth sells his liberty.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

“And indeed, no man has found his religion until he has found that for which he must sell his goods and his life.”

William Ernest Hocking (1873–1966) American philosopher

Source: The Meaning of God in Human Experience (1912), Ch. XVI : The Original Sources of the Knowledge of God, p. 237.

“The television commercial is not at all about the character of products to be consumed. It is about the character of the consumers of products.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Source: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

“A presentation copy…is a copy of a book whoch does not sell, sent you by the author, with his foolish autograph at the beginning of it; for which, if a stranger, he only demands your friendship; if a brother author, he expects from you a book of yours, which does not sell, in return.”

Charles Lamb Last Essays of Elia

Popular Fallacies: XI, That We Must Not Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth.
Last Essays of Elia (1833)

Related topics