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

William S. Burroughs

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" 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

" 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

" Americans have a special horror of giving up control, of letting things happen in their own way without interference. "

William S. Burroughs

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

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

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

William S. Burroughs

" Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole. "

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

" 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

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

William S. Burroughs

" Perhaps all pleasure is only relief. "

William S. Burroughs

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

William S. Burroughs

" No body of knowledge needs an organizational policy. Organizational policy can only impede the advancement of knowledge. There is a basic incompatibility between any organization and freedom of thought. "

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

" 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

" Nothing is true, everything is permitted. "

William S. Burroughs

" There couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks. "

William S. Burroughs

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

William S. Burroughs

" I am getting so far out one day I won't come back at all. "

William S. Burroughs

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

William S. Burroughs

" You must learn to exist with no religion, no country, no allies. You must learn to live alone in silence. "

William S. Burroughs

" In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality. "

William S. Burroughs

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

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

" An addict never stops growing. Stupider. "

William S. Burroughs

" Language is a virus from outer space. "

William S. Burroughs

" Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape. "

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

" 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