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Language is a virus from outer space.
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
Outer
Space
Language
Virus
Viruses
More quotes by William S. Burroughs
I know this one pusher walks around humming a tune and everybody he passes takes it up. He is so grey and spectral and anonymous they don't see him and think it is their own mind humming the tune.
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
After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say 'I want to see the manager.'
William S. Burroughs
In this world, [of Flash and Filigree] nothing is true, and censure or outrage is simply irrelevant.
William S. Burroughs
First there was a young guy sitting in front of television in a T-shirt drinking beer with his mother, then there was an older fatter person sitting in front of television in a T-shirt drinking beer with his mother.
William S. Burroughs
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.
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
When all lies, deceit, pretense is stripped away, what remains? The truth of a painting, or a book or a man.
William S. Burroughs
I think that Richard Nixon will go down in history as a true folk hero, who struck a vital blow to the whole diseased concept of the revered image and gave the American virtue of irreverence and skepticism back to the people.
William S. Burroughs
Perhaps all pleasure is only relief.
William S. Burroughs
A cat's rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling blue sparks, eyes blazing and sputtering.
William S. Burroughs
The first and most important thing an individual can do is to become an individual again, decontrol himself, train himself as to what is going on and win back as much independent ground for himself as possible
William S. Burroughs
So many people in the Western World are just automatically made ill by any sort of frank writing about sexual matters.
William S. Burroughs
Many of my characters first came through to me as voices. That's why I use a tape recorder.
William S. Burroughs
How long does it take man to realize that he cannot want what he wants? You have to live in hell to see heaven.
William S. Burroughs
The idea that addiction is somehow a psychological illness is, I think, totally ridiculous. It's as psychological as malaria. It's a matter of exposure. People, generally speaking, will take any intoxicant or any drug that gives them a pleasant effect if it is available to them.
William S. Burroughs
I think Judge Learned Hand was a cultured, intelligent man.
William S. Burroughs
I am trying like Klee, to create something that will have a life of its own, that can put me in real danger, a danger which I willingly take on myself.
William S. Burroughs
My characters are quite as real to me as so-called real people which is one reason why I'm not subject to what is known as loneliness. I have plenty of company.
William S. Burroughs
Whether you sniff it smoke it eat it or shove it up your ass the result is the same: addiction.
William S. Burroughs