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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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William S. Burroughs
Age: 83 †
Born: 1914
Born: February 5
Died: 1997
Died: August 11
Essayist
Novelist
Painter
Photographer
Poet
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
St. Louis
Missouri
William Seward Burroughs II
Uilʹi︠a︡m Berrouz
William Lee
William Burroughs
Ouiliam Baroouz
William Seward Burroughs
Willy Lee
William S. (William Seward) Burroughs
Happiness
War
Without
Byproduct
Seek
Victory
Function
Conflict
Purpose

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Humility is indeed beatness, a compulsory virtue that no one exhibits unless he has to.
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Writers, like elephants, have long, vicious memories. There are things I wish I could forget.
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Perhaps all pleasure is only relief.
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Language is a virus from outer space.
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We can translate word and letter into color - [Arthur] Rimbaud stated that in his color vowels, words quote words can be read in silent color.
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Biologically speaking the Afro-Asiatic block is in the ascendancy - always remember that both Negro and White are minority groups - the largest race is the Mongoloid group.
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Artists to my mind are the real architects of change.
William S. Burroughs
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The line between inner and outer landscapes is breaking down. Earthquakes can result from seismic upheavals within the human mind. The whole random universe of the industrial age is breaking down into cryptic fragments.
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He is a boy sleeping against the mosque wall, ejaculates wet dreaming into a thousand cunts pink and smooth as sea shells.
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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.
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There's a book called Mummy and the people actually seem to have become addicted to mummy dust. And mummy dust was somehow made from people who've died of the most loathsome diseases. It's too bad that [David] Cronenberg didn't see this book, see I only saw it after the film was made. It might have been of interest to him.
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After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.
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Most serious writers refuse to make themselves available to the things that technology is doing. I've never been able to understand this sort of fear.
William S. Burroughs
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The dark Gods of pain are surfacing from the immemorial filth of time.
William S. Burroughs
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Cats didn't start as mousers. Weasels and snakes and dogs are more efficient as rodent-control agents. I postulate that cats started as psychic companions, as Familiars, and have never deviated from this function.
William S. Burroughs
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Never interfere in a girl and boy fight.
William S. Burroughs
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There is nothing one fears more or is more ashamed of than not being oneself. Yet few people realize even an approximation of their true potential. Most people must live with varying degrees of the shame and fear of not being fully in control of themselves.
William S. Burroughs
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In exorcism, a verbal argument can never do anything. You can't ever beat the entity in a verbal argument because that's what he wants. It's only through a confront, a non-verbal confront, that anything happens. It has to be non-verbal.
William S. Burroughs
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That old feeling is still in my leaking heart.
William S. Burroughs
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Intelligence and war are games, perhaps the only meaningful games left. If any player becomes too proficient, the game is threatened with termination.
William S. Burroughs