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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
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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
Heaven
Cannot
Doe
Live
Take
Realize
Long
Wants
Men
Realizing
Hell
More quotes by William S. Burroughs
Whether you sniff it smoke it eat it or shove it up your ass the result is the same: addiction.
William S. Burroughs
Anslinger's reefer madness did not caution even the seeds of efficient, intelligent, ruthless action ... The same goes for Hoover, sniveling Nixon, the whole miserable, wretchedly evil lot of them ... not a man among them who could have pulled off a successful coup in a banana republic.
William S. Burroughs
A phenomenon must be to some extent comprehensible to be perceived at all.
William S. Burroughs
There are no innocent bystanders ... what are they doing there in the first place?
William S. Burroughs
I've listened to and know Allen Ginsberg music and met him a couple of times, but I don't have any strong statements to make.
William S. Burroughs
I knew [Timothy] Leary, but barely knew, didn't really know Jan [Kerouac].
William S. Burroughs
He is a boy sleeping against the mosque wall, ejaculates wet dreaming into a thousand cunts pink and smooth as sea shells.
William S. Burroughs
Addiction is a disease of exposure. Doctors and nurses, for instance, have a high addiction rate.
William S. Burroughs
It is indeed difficult to make a living as a writer, and my advice to anyone contemplating a literary career is to have some other trade.
William S. Burroughs
I wasn't exposed to art as I was growing up, and can't recall the first time I saw a work of art. However, I remember very clearly a vision I had of a little green reindeer when I was a child, and visions emanate from the same mythical area where painting resides. Whatever the reason, I immediately felt comfortable working with visual materials.
William S. Burroughs
[Political movements] both favor alcohol and are against pot.
William S. Burroughs
Happinessis a byproduct of function. Those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war.
William S. Burroughs
Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative.
William S. Burroughs
The self is like a pimping blackmailing chauffeur who gets you from here to there on word lines.
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
This is a war universe. War all the time. There may be other universes, but ours seems to be based on war and games.
William S. Burroughs
And there are my cats, engaged in a ritual that goes back thousands of years, tranquilly licking themselves after the meal. Practical animals, they prefer to have others provide the food ... some of them do. There must have been a split between the cats who accepted domestication and those who did not.
William S. Burroughs
in the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen
William S. Burroughs
The simplest questions are the most difficult.
William S. Burroughs
Whether you like it or not, you are committed to the human endeavor. I cannot ally myself with such a purely negative goal as avoidance of suffering. Suffering is a chance you take by the fact of being alive.
William S. Burroughs
