William S. Burroughs Quotes
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The American uppermiddle-class citizen is a composite of negatives. He is largely delineated by what he is not.
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You do an awful lot of bad writing in order to do any good writing. Incredibly bad. I think it would be very interesting to make a collection of some of the worst writing by good writers.
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I had not taken a bath in a year nor changed my clothes or removed them except to stick a needle every hour in the fibrous grey wooden flesh of heroin addiction. I did absolutely nothing.
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A functioning police state needs no police.
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I see painting as an evocative magic, and there must always be a random factor in magic, one which must be constantly changed and renewed.
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I detest limitations of any kind, and intend to establish my ass some place where I am a virgin on the police blotter.
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Revolution in America begins in books and music, then waits for political operatives to 'implement changes after the fact.'
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I began to get a feeling familiar to me from my bartending days of being the only sane man in a nuthouse. It doesn't make you feel superior but depressed and scared, because there is nobody you can contact.
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Bizarre and engrossingly disturbing, Naked Lunch, finds truth in madness.
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In the event of atomic war there is a tremendous biological advantage in the so-called undeveloped areas that have a high birth rate and high death rate because, man, they can plow under those mutations.
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I am not a person and I am not an animal. There is something I am here for something I must do before I can go.
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A doctor is not criticized for describing the manifestations and symptoms of an illness, even though the symptoms may be disgusting. I feel that a writer has the right to the same freedom In fact, I think that the time has come for the line between literature and science, a purely arbitrary line, to be erased.
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Junk takes everything and gives nothing but insurance against junk sickness.
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Our national drug is alcohol. We tend to regard the use of any other drug with special horror.
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Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don't make compromises. Don't worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned with doing good work and make the right choices and protect your work. And if you can build a good name, eventually, that name will be its own currency.
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I like the shaman very much, the way he was crying.
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Love is a haunting melody that I have never mastered, and I fear I never will.
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His whole being radiates a pure, wild sweetness, flitting through night woods with little melodious cries, on some cryptic errand. There is also an aura of doom and sadness about this trusting little creature. He has been abandoned many times over the centuries, left to die in cold city alleys, in hot noon vacant lots, pottery shards, nettles, crumbled mud walls. Many times he has cried for help in vain.
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For years I wondered why dreams are so often dull when related, and this morning I find the answer, which is very simple - like most answers, you have always known it: No context ... like a stuffed animal set on the floor of a bank.
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He asked if i wouldn't like to live completely without problems, say in greece maybe, nice climate, everything provided? i say: "when we find out what we are actually doing and who we actually are, that is the point of living...it may be only a few seconds...a few seconds of significant actions, out of a lifetime.
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For God's sake, keep your eyes open. Notice what's going on around you.
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Whatever happened to God's justice? I am convinced that God exist and God is one asshole.
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There isn't a feeling you can get on drugs that you can't get without drugs.
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Quien sabe? Not me. The older I get the less I sabe, the less wisdom, maturity and caution I have.