William S. Burroughs Quotes - Page 11

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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

  Cutting, Viruses, Form

  William S. Burroughs (2013). “Cities of the Red Night: A Novel”, p.166, Holt Paperbacks

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• Sexual arousal results from the repetition and impact of image.

  William S. Burroughs

  Impact, Arousal, Results

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• If you wish to alter or annihilate a pyramid of numbers in a serial relation, you alter or remove the bottom number. If we wish to annihilate the junk pyramid, we must start with the bottom of the pyramid: the Addict in the Street, and stop tilting quixotically for the "higher ups" so called, all of whom are immediately replaceable. The addict in the street who must have junk to live is the one irreplaceable factor in the junk equation. When there are no more addicts to buy junk there will be no junk traffic. As long as junk need exists, someone will service it.

  William S. Burroughs

  Numbers, Pyramids, Long

  William S. Burroughs (2007). “Naked Lunch: The Restored Text”, p.202, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Like pregnant women lose their teeth feeding the stranger, junkies lose their yellow fangs feeding the monkey.

  William S. Burroughs

  Yellow, Teeth, Monkeys

  William S. Burroughs (2007). “Naked Lunch: The Restored Text”, p.14, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• We can translate word and letter into color - [Arthur] Rimbaud stated that in his color vowels, words quote "words" can be read in silent color.

  William S. Burroughs

  Color, Vowels, Letters

  Source: realitystudio.org

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• Now what sort of man or woman or monster would stroke a centipede I have ever seen? And here is my good big centipede! If such a man exists, I say kill him without more ado. He is a traitor to the human race.

  William S. Burroughs

  Men, Race, Monsters

  William S. Burroughs (1988). “The Western Lands”, Penguin Group USA

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• I think the ideal situation for a family is to be completely incestuous.

  William S. Burroughs

  Family, Thinking, Situation

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• 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

  Beautiful, Art, Moving

  William S. Burroughs (2001). “Burroughs Live: The Collected Interviews of William S. Burroughs, 1960-1997”, Semiotext

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

  William S. Burroughs

  Giving Up, Special, Way

  William S. Burroughs (2007). “Naked Lunch: The Restored Text”, p.179, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• The most deadly picture is a picture of nothing at all. The colors are there, but there is no image, nothing.

  William S. Burroughs

  Color

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• The forward step must be made in silence. We detach ourselves from word forms - this can be accomplished by substituting for words, letters, concepts, verbal concepts, other modes of expressions: for example, color.

  William S. Burroughs

  Expression, Color, Silence

  Source: realitystudio.org

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• There is in fact something obscene and sinister about photography, a desire to imprison, to incorporate, a sexual intensity of pursuit.

  William S. Burroughs

  Photography, Desire, Facts

  William S. Burroughs (2007). “Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader”, p.87, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Shooting is my principal pastime.

  William S. Burroughs

  Shooting, Pastime, Principal

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• Yes, for all of us in the Shakespeare Squadron, writing is just that: not an escape from reality, but an attempt to change reality.

  William S. Burroughs

  Writing, Reality

  William S. Burroughs, James Grauerholz (2001). “Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs”, p.16, Grove Press

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• Tangier is one of the few places left in the world where, so long as you don't proceed to robbery, violence, or some form of crude, antisocial behavior, you can do exactly what you want.

  William S. Burroughs

  Long, Tangier, World

  William S. Burroughs (2007). “Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader”, p.128, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Some of us are sixty feet long with a brain the size of a walnut.

  William S. Burroughs

  Feet, Long, Brain

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• Now all politicians assume a necessity of control, the more efficient the control the better.

  William S. Burroughs

  Assuming, Politician, Efficient

  Source: realitystudio.org

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• Love is a haunting melody that I have never mastered, and I fear I never will.

  William S. Burroughs

  Love, Heartbreak, Haunting

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• I know this one pusher walks around humming a tune and everybody he passes takes it up. He is so grey and spectral and anonymous they don't see him and think it is their own mind humming the tune.

  William S. Burroughs

  Thinking, Mind, Tunes

  William S. Burroughs (2007). “Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader”, p.151, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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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.

  William S. Burroughs

  Technology, Able, Serious

  William S. Burroughs (2001). “Burroughs Live: The Collected Interviews of William S. Burroughs, 1960-1997”, Semiotext

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• Like Spain, I am bound to the past.

  William S. Burroughs

  Past, Spain, Bounds

  William S. Burroughs (2013). “Cities of the Red Night: A Novel”, p.332, Holt Paperbacks

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• Squatting on old bones and excrement and rusty iron, in a white blaze of heat, a panorama of naked idiots stretches to the horizon. Complete silence - their speech centres are destroyed - except for the crackle of sparks and the popping of singed flesh as they apply electrodes up and down the spine. White smoke of burning flesh hangs in the motionless air. A group of children have tied an idiot to a post with barbed wire and built a fire between his legs and stand watching with bestial curiosity as the flames lick his thighs. His flesh jerks in the fire with insect agony.

  William S. Burroughs

  Children, Air, Flames

  "Naked Lunch". Book by William S. Burroughs, 1959.

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• The idea was that we would decide the order when we looked at the proofs. I remember Brion Gysin saying "Well, why change it? It's perfect the way it is, the way it came from the printer." Made one major change, that is, the first chapter that came from the printers, which would be the beginning, we moved to the end. The first chapter became the last chapter. There's no actual cutups in Naked Lunch.

  William S. Burroughs

  Order, Ideas, Lunch

  Interview with Allen Ginsberg, sensitiveskinmagazine.com. March 1992.

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• Junk takes everything and gives nothing but insurance against junk sickness.

  William S. Burroughs

  Giving, Junk, Sickness

  William S. Burroughs (2007). “Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader”, p.66, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• I was thinking about New Mexico, and I rounded the corner in New York, and there was a New Mexico license plate: "New Mexico, land of enchantment."

  William S. Burroughs

  New York, Thinking, Land

  Source: sensitiveskinmagazine.com

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