William S. Burroughs Quotes

Everything that has been will be, everything that will be is, everything that will be has been.

What always was must always be.

In a world in which time is a circle, every handshake, every kiss, every birth, every word, will be repeated precisely.

No power or virtue of man could ever have deserved that what has been fated should not have taken place.

I figure the world is basically a machine. I don't know who made it, if it was the Fates, or the gods, or the capital-G god or whatever. But it chugs along the way it's supposed to most of the time. Sure, little pieces break off and stuff goes haywire once in a while, but mostly... things happen for a reason.

Unless, of course, there's no such thing as chance;...in which case, we should either-optimistically-get up and cheer, because if everything is planned in advance, then we all have a meaning and are spared the terror of knowing ourselves to be random, without a why; or else, of course, we might-as pessimists-give up right here and now, understanding the futility of thought decision action, since nothing we think makes any difference anyway, things will be as they will. Where, then, is optimism? In fate or in chaos?

The Bible, contrary to what people think, actually puts forth a strong case for no free will, no free will.

So long as it fated, fate didn't care what it fated.

Don't Time travel into the past. You can't change it. Today it starts all over again. Every tomorrow is determined by every day.

At first laying down, as a fact fundamental, That nothing with God can be accidental.

PREDESTINATION, n. The doctrine that all things occur according to programme. . . . not be confused with that of foreordination. The difference is great enough to have deluged Christendom with ink, to say nothing of the gore.

Providence and Manifest Destiny are synonyms often invoked to support arguments based on wishful thinking.

If people knew the story of their lives how many would then elect to live them? People speak about what is in store. But there is nothing in store. The day is made of what has come before. The world itself must be surprised at the shape of that which appears. Perhaps even God.

We are in the grip of some big machine grinding us along. The force of it simplifies everything. A weird calm settled over me from inside out. What is about to happen has stood in line to happen. All the roads out of that instant have been closed, one by one.

Whoever said that the past isn't dead had it backward. It's the future that's already dead, already played out.

Fate then is that necessity by which a certain result will surely be brought to pass according to the natural course of events however we may vary the particular circumstances which precede the event.

The only sin is the sin of being born.

Which brings me to my conclusion upon Free Will and Predestination, namely - let the reader mark it - that they are identical.

The doctrine of Necessity or Destiny is the doctrine of Toleration.

Men speak of blind destiny, a thing without scheme or purpose. But what sort of destiny is that? Each act in this world from which there can be no turning back has before it another, and it another yet. In a vast endless net. Men imagine that the choices before them are theirs to make. But we are free to act only upon what is given. Choice is lost in the maze of generations and each act in the maze is itself an enslavement for it voids every alternative and binds one ever more tightly into the constraints that make a life.

Whatever may happen to thee, it was prepared for thee from all eternity.

God is not blind; neither is He capricious. For Him there are no accidents. With God there are no cases of chance events.

Whatever is destined not to happen will not happen, try as you may. Whatever is destined to happen will happen, do what you may to prevent it. This is certain. The best course, therefore, is to remain silent.

It was a dream, and in dreams you have no choices: either there are no decisions to be made, or they were made for you long before ever the dream began.

Often the prudent, far from making their destinies, succumb to them. -Francois