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Death was in every sell of his body. He gave off a faint, greenish steam of decay. Lee imagined he would glow in the dark.

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
Death
Faint
Body
Steam
Every
Imagined
Would
Decay
Sell
Sells
Gave
Greenish
Dark
Glow

More quotes by William S. Burroughs

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Do not proffer sympathy to the mentally ill it is a bottomless pit. Tell them firmly, I am not paid to listen to this drivel - you are a terminal fool! Otherwise, they make you as crazy as they are.
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 couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks.
William S. Burroughs
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It's a tract against capital punishment in the genre of Swift's Modest Proposal. I was simply following a formula to its logical conclusion. Some people appear to have understood it. The publication of Naked Lunch in England practically coincided with their abolition of capital punishment. The book obviously had a certain effect.
William S. Burroughs
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Truth is used to vitalize a statement rather than devitalize it. Truth implies more than a simple statement of fact. I don't have any whiskey, may be a fact but it is not a truth.
William S. Burroughs
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Language is a virus from outer space.
William S. Burroughs
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The self is like a pimping blackmailing chauffeur who gets you from here to there on word lines.
William S. Burroughs
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The best way to keep something bad from happening is to see it ahead of time... and you can't see it if you refuse to face the possibility.
William S. Burroughs
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Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller what there is.
William S. Burroughs
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Black magic operates most effectively in preconscious, marginal areas. Casual curses are the most effective.
William S. Burroughs
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Revolution in America begins in books and music, then waits for political operatives to 'implement changes after the fact.'
William S. Burroughs
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Junk takes everything and gives nothing but insurance against junk sickness.
William S. Burroughs
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If you weren't surprised by your life you wouldn't be alive. Life is surprise.
William S. Burroughs
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Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don't make compromises. Don't worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned with doing good work and make the right choices and protect your work. And if you can build a good name, eventually, that name will be its own currency.
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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danger is a biologic necessity, like dreams. if you face death, for that time, for the period of direct confrontation, you are immortal.
William S. Burroughs
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I had the feeling that some horrible image was just beyond the field of vision, moving, as I turned my head, so that I never quite saw it.
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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Everything Jack says is to be taken with considerable reserve.
William S. Burroughs
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The purpose of technology is not to confuse the brain but to serve the body.
William S. Burroughs