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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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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
Trouble
Business
Mind
Smallpox
World
Virus
Viruses
Caused
Folks
Atheism
More quotes by William S. Burroughs
The nonconformist here may be beat down by life but still has a beauty in his or her longing for freedom and for an awakening of the mind.
William S. Burroughs
If, after spending time with a person, you feel as though you've lost a quart of plasma, avoid that person in the future.
William S. Burroughs
Criminal law is one of the few professions where the client buys someone else's luck. The luck of most people is strictly non-transferrable. But a good criminal lawyer can sell all his luck to a client, and the more luck he sells the more he has to sell.
William S. Burroughs
If the soft machine works, don't fix it. If it works, don't fix it.
William S. Burroughs
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.
William S. Burroughs
Tangier is one of the few places left in the world where, so long as you don't proceed to robbery, violence, or some form of crude, antisocial behavior, you can do exactly what you want.
William S. Burroughs
A consumer society is about simplfying and degrading the consumer as well as the product.
William S. Burroughs
Artists to my mind are the real architects of change.
William S. Burroughs
If all pleasure is relief from tension, junk affords relief from the whole life process, in disconnecting the hypothalamus, which is the center of psychic energy and libido.
William S. Burroughs
Which came first the intestine or the tapeworm?
William S. Burroughs
The junk merchant doesn't sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client.
William S. Burroughs
A functioning police state needs no police.
William S. Burroughs
The Planet drifts to random insect doom.
William S. Burroughs
A writer does not own words any more than a painter owns colors. So lets dispense with this originality fetish… Look, listen and transcribe and forget about being original.
William S. Burroughs
Junk takes everything and gives nothing but insurance against junk sickness.
William S. Burroughs
You need a good bedside manner with doctors or you will get nowhere.
William S. Burroughs
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.
William S. Burroughs
The people in power will not disappear voluntarily, giving flowers to the cops just isn't going to work. This thinking is fostered by the establishment they like nothing better than love and nonviolence. The only way I like to see cops given flowers is in a flower pot from a high window.
William S. Burroughs
Most all methods of capitol punishment are designed to inflict the maximum of humiliation - not attempts to prevent suicide.
William S. Burroughs
After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say 'I want to see the manager.'
William S. Burroughs