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Kerouac and I are not real at all. The only thing about a writer is that he has written, and not his so-called life. 'And we (will) all die and the stars will go out, one after another.

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
Called
Written
Stars
Dies
Another
Real
Thing
Kerouac
Life
Writer

More quotes by William S. Burroughs

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Panic is the sudden realization that everything around you is alive.
William S. Burroughs
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When people start talking about their bowel movements, they are inexorable as the processes of which they speak.
William S. Burroughs
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Like most qualities, cuteness is delineated by what it isn't. Most people aren't cute at all, or if so they quickly outgrow their cuteness ... Elegance, grace, delicacy, beauty, and a lack of self-consciousness: a creature who knows he is cute soon isn't.
William S. Burroughs
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I don't have any politics. I feel that as soon as politics arises, things are already in a hopeless state of deterioration.
William S. Burroughs
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That old feeling is still in my leaking heart.
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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Whatever happened to God's justice? I am convinced that God exist and God is one asshole.
William S. Burroughs
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No one is ever really alone. You are part of everything alive.
William S. Burroughs
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There is in fact something obscene and sinister about photography, a desire to imprison, to incorporate, a sexual intensity of pursuit.
William S. Burroughs
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The dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set-up by the non-dreamers
William S. Burroughs
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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
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Admittedly, a homosexual can be conditioned to react sexually to a woman, or to an old boot for that matter. In fact, both homo - and heterosexual experimental subjects have been conditioned to react sexually to an old boot, and you can save a lot of money that way.
William S. Burroughs
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Any belief in Creators or Purpose is wishful thinking. And when you point out that perhaps ALL thinking is wishful, reactions of intense irritation give evidence that we are not dealing with logic but with faith.
William S. Burroughs
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Writing prejudicial, off-putting reviews is a precise exercise in applied black magic. The reviewer can draw free-floating disagreeable associations to a book by implying that the book is completely unimportant without saying exactly why, and carefully avoiding any clear images that could capture the reader's full attention.
William S. Burroughs
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I read a lot of books for information, like doctor books, spy books. . . .
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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Virtue is simply happiness, and happiness is a by-product of function. You are happy when you are functioning.
William S. Burroughs
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I don't care if people hate my guts I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it.
William S. Burroughs
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The broken image of Man moves in minute by minute and cell by cell.... Poverty, hatred, war, police-criminals, bureaucracy, insanity, all symptoms of The Human Virus.
William S. Burroughs
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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