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All writing is in fact cut-ups. A collage of words read heard overheard. What else?
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
Writing
Cutting
Heard
Read
Fact
Words
Overheard
Artist
Collage
Facts
Collages
Else
Stealing
More quotes by William S. Burroughs
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
I feel that opiates - I include opium and all its derivatives, such as morphine, heroin, pantopon, etc. - are quite useless for any sort of creative work, useful though they may be for routine work. Much of the hard physical work in the Far East is done by opium addicts.
William S. Burroughs
For instance, they [The Federal Narcotics Bureau ] give out that marijuana is a harmful and habit-forming drug, and it simply isn't. They claim that you can get addicted to opiates with one shot, and you can't. They over-estimate the physical bad effects, and so forth.
William S. Burroughs
I prefer cats to people, for the most part. Most people aren't cute at all, and if they are cute they very rapidly outgrow it.
William S. Burroughs
There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.
William S. Burroughs
I am getting so far out one day I won't come back at all.
William S. Burroughs
Never interfere in a girl and boy fight.
William S. Burroughs
Time is what death needs to grow people in.
William S. Burroughs
Paranoia is just having the right information.
William S. Burroughs
I project myself out through the glasses and across the street, a ghost in the morning sunlight, torn with disembodied lust.
William S. Burroughs
If after having been exposed to someone's presence you feel as if you've lost a quart of plasma, avoid that presence. You need it like you need pernicious anemia.
William S. Burroughs
I started to write in about 1950 I was thirty-five at the time there didn't seem to be any strong motivation. I simply was endeavoring to put down in a more or less straightforward journalistic style something about my experiences with addiction and addicts.
William S. Burroughs
In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality.
William S. Burroughs
The only possible ethic is to do what one wants to do.
William S. Burroughs
There's a boy across the river with an ass like a peach alas I was no swimmer and lost my Clementine.
William S. Burroughs
Now all politicians assume a necessity of control, the more efficient the control the better.
William S. Burroughs
All abilities are paid for with disabilities. perfect health may entail the heavy toll of bovine stupidity. insight into one area involves blind spots in another.
William S. Burroughs
There is no line between the 'real world' and 'world of myth and symbol.' Objects, sensations, hit with the impact of hallucination.
William S. Burroughs
Most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can't mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus has.
William S. Burroughs
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