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" In the U.S., you have to be a deviant or die of boredom. "

William S. Burroughs

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" The purpose of technology is not to confuse the brain but to serve the body. "

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" Changes... can only be effected by alterations in the original. The only thing not prerecorded in a prerecorded universe are the prerecordings themselves. The copies can only repeat themselves word for word. A virus is a copy. You can pretty it up, cut it up, scramble it - it will reassemble in the same form. "

William S. Burroughs

" Most serious writers refuse to make themselves available to the things that technology is doing. I've never been able to understand this sort of fear. "

William S. Burroughs

" The face of evil is always the face of total need. "

William S. Burroughs

" How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity. "

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" Which came first the intestine or the tapeworm? "

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" Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller. "

William S. Burroughs

" Most people don't see what's going on around them. That's my principal message to writers: 'For God's sake, keep your eyes open. Notice what's going on around you.' "

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

" Virtue is simply happiness, and happiness is a by-product of function. You are happy when you are functioning. "

William S. Burroughs

" After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say 'I want to see the manager.' "

William S. Burroughs

" 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

" Speaking for myself, art differs from writing in that I never know what I'm going to paint until I paint it, so it's almost like automatic writing. A writer, on the other hand, can't help but know what he's going to write, because the activity demands a degree of premeditation. "

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

" Perhaps all pleasure is only relief. "

William S. Burroughs

" Visual art and writing don't exist on an aesthetic hierarchy that positions one above the other, because each is capable of things the other can't do at all. Sometimes one picture is equal to 30 pages of discourse, just as there are things images are completely incapable of communicating. "

William S. Burroughs

" Our national drug is alcohol. We tend to regard the use any other drug with special horror. "

William S. Burroughs

" This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. "

William S. Burroughs

" After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military. "

William S. Burroughs

" I see no reason why the artistic world can't absolutely merge with Madison Avenue. Pop art is a move in that direction. Why can't we have advertisements with beautiful words and beautiful images? "

William S. Burroughs

" Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative. "

William S. Burroughs

" You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal. "

William S. Burroughs

" Some people like neat suburbs. I always am attracted to the rundown and the old and the offbeat. "

William S. Burroughs

" The world wasn't a more tolerant place when I was a young man. Rather, they simply sidestepped all the issues. "

William S. Burroughs

" A functioning police state needs no police. "

William S. Burroughs

" Like all pure creatures, cats are practical. "

William S. Burroughs

" Hemingway was a prisoner of his style. No one can talk like the characters in Hemingway except the characters in Hemingway. His style in the wildest sense finally killed him. "

William S. Burroughs

" The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values. "

William S. Burroughs

" The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself. Of course he wants care and shelter. You don't buy love for nothing. "

William S. Burroughs

" Black magic operates most effectively in preconscious, marginal areas. Casual curses are the most effective. "

William S. Burroughs