"I first heard of the 23 Enigma from William S. Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch, Nova Express, etc. According to Burroughs, he had known a certain Captain Clark, around 1960 in Tangier, who once bragged that he had been sailing 23 years without an accident. That very day, Clark's ship had an accident that killed him and everybody else aboard. Furthermore, while Burroughs was thinking about this crude example of the irony of the gods that evening, a bulletin on the radio announced the crash of an airliner in Florida, USA. The pilot was another Captain Clark and the flight was Flight 23."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Novelists from the United StatesAcademics from the United StatesEssayists from the United StatesShort story writers from the United StatesPoets from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Robert Anton Wilson, in "The 23 Phenomenon" in Fortean Times No. 23 (1977), published online (May 2007)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_S._Burroughs
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II (5 February 1914 – 2 August 1997), more commonly known as William S. Burroughs, was an American novelist, essayist, social critic, painter and spoken word performer. Much of Burroughs' work is semi-autobiographical, drawn from his experiences as an opiate addict, a condition that marked the last fifty years of his life. He was a central member of the Beat Generation and an avant-garde author who influenced popular culture as well as literature. In 1984 he was elected
114 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by William S. Burroughs →
Related Quotes
"Communication must become total and conscious before we can stop it."
"In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality. It is as final as the mountains: a fact. There it is. When you …"
"The 'Other Half' is the word. The 'Other Half' is an organism. Word is an organism. The presence of the 'Other Half' …"
"1. Never give anything away for nothing. 2. Never give more than you have to (always catch the buyer hungry and alway…"
"You know, they ask me if I were on a desert island and I knew nobody would ever see what I wrote, would I go on writi…"
"The hallucinogens produce visionary states, sort of, but morphine and its derivatives decrease awareness of inner pro…"
"When a certain stage of responsibility and awareness has been reached by a young banker he is taken to a room lined w…"
"A paranoid man is a man who knows a little about what's going on."
"Faced by the actual practice of freedom, the French and American revolutions would be forced to stand by their words."
"The junk merchant doesn't sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve…"