Quotes from book
The Western Lands

Name: The Western Lands
Author: William S. Burroughs

The Western Lands is a 1987 novel by William S. Burroughs. The final book of the trilogy that begins with Cities of the Red Night and continues with The Place of Dead Roads , its title refers to the western bank of the Nile River, which in Egyptian mythology is the Land of the Dead. Inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Burroughs explores the after-death state by means of dream scenarios, hallucinatory passages, talismanic magic, occultism, superstition, and his characteristic view of the nature of reality.

“Cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.”

William S. Burroughs book The Western Lands

Source: The Western Lands (1987), ch. 2

“Remember the Italian steward who put on women's clothes and so filched a seat in a lifeboat? "A cur in human shape, certainly he was born and saved to set a new standard by which to judge infamy and shame.”

William S. Burroughs book The Western Lands

Source: The Western Lands (1987), p. 6

“Consider the impasse of a one-God universe. He is all-knowing and all-powerful. He can't go anywhere, since He is already everywhere. He can't do anything, since the act of doing presupposes opposition. His universe is irrevocably thermodynamic, having no friction by definition. So, He has to create friction: War, Fear, Sickness, Death, to keep his dying show on the road.”

William S. Burroughs book The Western Lands

lyric from spoken-word recording "A One God Universe," featured on Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales, paraphrased by Burroughs from The Western Lands, p. 113
The Western Lands (1987)

“Now what sort of man or woman or monster would stroke a centipede I have ever seen? "And here is my good big centipede!" If such a man exists, I say kill him without more ado. He is a traitor to the human race.”

William S. Burroughs book The Western Lands

Source: The Western Lands (1987), ch. 4

“Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.”

William S. Burroughs book The Western Lands

Source: The Western Lands (1987), ch. 5, as cited in The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (1993), pg. 234

“No job too dirty for a fucking scientist.”

William S. Burroughs book The Western Lands

Source: The Western Lands (1987), p. 8