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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

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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
Writer
Owns
Color
Lets
Forget
Originality
Words
Colors
Doe
Painter
Look
Originals
Transcribe
Looks
Original
Dispense
Listen
Fetish

More quotes by William S. Burroughs

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The way to kill a man or a nation is to cut off his dreams, the way the whites are taking care of the Indians: killing their dreams, their magic, their familiar spirits.
William S. Burroughs
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You know, they ask me if I were on a desert island and I knew nobody would ever see what I wrote, would I go on writing. My answer is most emphatically yes. I would go on writing for company. Because I'm creating an imaginary - it's always imaginary - world in which I would like to live.
William S. Burroughs
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How far would people get in physics if discovery was described as disgusting - Your formula is disgusting and filthy? Not very far.
William S. Burroughs
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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
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Look at these poisonous color maps where flesh trees grow from human sacrifices listen to these sniggering half-heard words of tenderness and doom from lips spotted with decay
William S. Burroughs
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In the U.S., you have to be a deviant or die of boredom.
William S. Burroughs
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when I become death. Death is the seed from which I grow.
William S. Burroughs
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When you get to be my age there are more and more people you have known that you miss. Brion [Gysin], Antony Balch, Ian Summerville are ones I think of right away I was quite close to.
William S. Burroughs
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Exorcism is a subject that interests me, and books on shamanism, I've read through.
William S. Burroughs
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Sexual arousal results from the repetition and impact of image.
William S. Burroughs
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He who has learned to do nothing with his whole mind and body will have everything done for him.
William S. Burroughs
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Home is where your ass is and if you want to move you move your ass the first step is learning to change homes with someone else and have someone else's ass.
William S. Burroughs
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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.
William S. Burroughs
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Like all pure creatures, cats are practical.
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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The only way I like to see cops given flowers is in a flower pot from a high window.
William S. Burroughs
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There are no innocent bystanders ... what are they doing there in the first place?
William S. Burroughs
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[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
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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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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