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Writers, like elephants, have long, vicious memories. There are things I wish I could forget.
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
Things
Like
Elephants
Vicious
Writers
Memories
Forget
Wish
Long
More quotes by William S. Burroughs
I have no message to give the politicians of the world. They're all completely addicted to promiscuous verbalization and I'm quite sure they would not be at all interested in hearing about cut-ups and hieroglyphics and still less interested to hear about silence.
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
Naked Lunch was from about a thousand pages of material. A lot of it overflowed, then, into the cut-up trilogy including Nova Express.
William S. Burroughs
If you talk you always end up with politics, it gets nowhere. I mean man it's strictly from the soft typewriter.
William S. Burroughs
When you cut into the present the future leaks out.
William S. Burroughs
The Federal Narcotics Bureau does a grave disservice by disseminating a lot of misinformation. Most of what they say is such nonsense that I didn't believe them about addiction.
William S. Burroughs
Mr. Bradley-Mr. Martin is two people because it is a statement of the impasse of dualistic universe which he has created, they have created. I think that any dualistic universe ends in Nova. Mr. Bradley-Mr. Martin is a kind of God. A God of stupidity, cowardice, ugliness.
William S. Burroughs
Junk takes everything and gives nothing but insurance against junk sickness.
William S. Burroughs
Every word is autobiographical, and every word is fiction.
William S. Burroughs
Virtue is simply happiness, and happiness is a by-product of function. You are happy when you are functioning.
William S. Burroughs
I feel that any form of so called psychotherapy is strongly contraindicated for addicts. The question Why did you start using narcotics in the first place? should never be asked. It is quite as irrelevant to treatment as it would be to ask a malarial patient why he went to a malarial area.
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
The world wasn't a more tolerant place when I was a young man. Rather, they simply sidestepped all the issues.
William S. Burroughs
[Death is] a gimmick. It's the time-birth-death gimmick. Can't go on much longer, too many people are wising up.
William S. Burroughs
The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself.
William S. Burroughs
I was thinking about New Mexico, and I rounded the corner in New York, and there was a New Mexico license plate: New Mexico, land of enchantment.
William S. Burroughs
I've listened to and know Allen Ginsberg music and met him a couple of times, but I don't have any strong statements to make.
William S. Burroughs
Junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy.
William S. Burroughs
There's no place for impractical dreamers around here.
William S. Burroughs
If I knew how much you loved me, I would’ve shot you sooner.
William S. Burroughs