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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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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
Use
Alcohol
Horror
Tend
National
Regard
Drug
Special

More quotes by William S. Burroughs

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In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality. It is as final as the mountains: a fact. There it is. When you realize it you cannot complain.
William S. Burroughs
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A phenomenon must be to some extent comprehensible to be perceived at all.
William S. Burroughs
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O death where is thy sting? The man is never on time.
William S. Burroughs
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Well, disgusting doesn't refer to the books but to the subjective reaction of the person making the complaint. I don't think that anything is disgusting per se. These words disgusting and filthy, etc., have prevented us from undertaking any scientific experimentation in sexual matters.
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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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.
William S. Burroughs
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The youth rebellion [1968] is a worldwide phenomenon that has not been seen before in history. I do not believe they will calm down ad be ad execs at thirty as the Establishment would like us to believe.
William S. Burroughs
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I like the shaman very much, the way he was crying.
William S. Burroughs
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There are no innocent bystanders.
William S. Burroughs
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The essence of White Supremacy is this: they are people who want to keep things as they are. That their children's children's children might be a different color is something very alarming to them - in short they are committed to the maintenance of the static image.
William S. Burroughs
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The American uppermiddle-class citizen is a composite of negatives. He is largely delineated by what he is not.
William S. Burroughs
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There is only one thing a writer can write about: what is in front of his senses at the moment of writing... I am a recording instrument... I do not presume to impose story plot continuity... Insofar as I succeed in Direct recording of certain areas of psychic process I may have limited function... I am not an entertainer.
William S. Burroughs
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I knew [Timothy] Leary, but barely knew, didn't really know Jan [Kerouac].
William S. Burroughs
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Who was I? The stranger was footsteps in the snow a long time ago.
William S. Burroughs
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The country with a low birth rate and low death rate will be hardest hit - and so the poor may indeed inherit the earth, because they're healthier.
William S. Burroughs
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You see, control can never be a means to any practical end...It can never be a means to anything but more control...like junk.
William S. Burroughs
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Love is a haunting melody that I have never mastered, and I fear I never will.
William S. Burroughs
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I certainly wouldn't advocate anyone using drugs on a regular or habitual basis.
William S. Burroughs
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People have nothing to say, but they are afraid of saying nothing, so what they do say comes out flat and vapid and meaningless. The shadow of death is on every face.
William S. Burroughs
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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.
William S. Burroughs