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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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" Language is a virus from outer space. "

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" A cat's rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling blue sparks, eyes blazing and sputtering. "

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" 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. "

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

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

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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. "

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" Hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside. "

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

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" Perhaps all pleasure is only relief. "

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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

" Gentle reader, the Fountain of Youth is radioactive, and those who imbibe its poisonous heavy waters will suffer the hideous fate of decaying metal. Yet almost without exception, the wretched idiot inhabitants of our benighted planet would gulp down this radioactive excrement if it were offered. "

William S. Burroughs

" Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts. "

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

" No one owns life, but anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death. "

William S. Burroughs

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

William S. Burroughs

" Thinking is not enough. There is no final enough of wisdom, experience - any... thing. "

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" 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

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

William S. Burroughs

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

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

" 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

" Like all pure creatures, cats are practical. "

William S. Burroughs

" Scientology is a model control system, a state in fact with its own courts, police, rewards and penalties. "

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

" Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact. "

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

" A functioning police state needs no police. "

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

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

William S. Burroughs

" 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