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William S Burroughs Inspirational Quotes (350)

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You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.
William S. Burroughs
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The only possible ethic is to do what one wants to do.
William S. Burroughs
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Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.
William S. Burroughs
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Be just and if you can't be just, be arbitrary.
William S. Burroughs
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The way to kill a man or a nation is to cut off his dreams, the way the whites are taking care of the Indians: killing their dreams, their magic, their familiar spirits.
William S. Burroughs
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The face of evil is always the face of total need.
William S. Burroughs
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In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas, a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed.
William S. Burroughs
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The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself. Of course he wants care and shelter. You don't buy love for nothing.
William S. Burroughs
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Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative.
William S. Burroughs
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There couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks.
William S. Burroughs
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A functioning police state needs no police.
William S. Burroughs
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Our national drug is alcohol. We tend to regard the use of any other drug with special horror.
William S. Burroughs
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Most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can't mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus has.
William S. Burroughs
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Happinessis a byproduct of function. Those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war.
William S. Burroughs
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Americans have a special horror of giving up control, of letting things happen in their own way without interference.
William S. Burroughs
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Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.
William S. Burroughs
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Smash the control images. Smash the control machine.
William S. Burroughs
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You must learn to exist with no religion, no country, no allies. You must learn to live alone in silence.
William S. Burroughs
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If everyone is to be made responsible for everything they do, you must extend responsibility beyond the level of conscious intention.
William S. Burroughs
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In the U.S., you have to be a deviant or die of boredom.
William S. Burroughs
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The purpose of technology is not to confuse the brain but to serve the body.
William S. Burroughs
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The world wasn't a more tolerant place when I was a young man. Rather, they simply sidestepped all the issues.
William S. Burroughs
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Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.
William S. Burroughs
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Thinking is not enough. Nothing is. There is no final enough of wisdom, experience — any f...ing thing.
William S. Burroughs
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