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Many of my characters first came through to me as voices. That's why I use a tape recorder.

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
Voice
Use
Character
Recorder
Firsts
Recorders
First
Tape
Many
Voices
Characters
Came

More quotes by William S. Burroughs

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In homosexual sex you know exactly what the other person is feeling, so you are identifying with the other person completely. In heterosexual sex you have no idea what the other person is feeling.
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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
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Language is a virus from outer space.
William S. Burroughs
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In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas, a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed.
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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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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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
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Tell the truth once and for all and shut up forever.
William S. Burroughs
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I think Judge Learned Hand was a cultured, intelligent man.
William S. Burroughs
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[Arab peoples] are stuck back thousands of years and they think they're going to get out with a TV set.
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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My greatest strength is to have a great capacity to confront myself no matter how unpleasant. My greatest weakness is that I don't. I know that's enigmatic, but that's sort of a general formula for anyone, actually.
William S. Burroughs
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Every word is autobiographical, and every word is fiction.
William S. Burroughs
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Political conflicts are merely surface manifestations. If conflicts arise you may be sure that certain powers intend to keep this conflict under operation since they hope to profit from the situation.
William S. Burroughs
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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
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The whole drug war is nothing but a pretext to increase police power and personnel, and that, of course, is dead wrong. So many created imagined drug offenses.
William S. Burroughs
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Tell Allen I plead guilty to vampirism and other crimes against life. But I love him and nothing else cancels love.
William S. Burroughs
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After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say 'I want to see the manager.'
William S. Burroughs
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In this world, [of Flash and Filigree] nothing is true, and censure or outrage is simply irrelevant.
William S. Burroughs
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I escaped the [Southern-writer] label because I didn't and don't write about the South.
William S. Burroughs