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2f7b2f4
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Sit down on your ass, or what's left of it after four years in the navy.
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William S. Burroughs |
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5e23b95
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May 4, 1985. I am packing for a short trip to New York to discuss the cat book with Brion. In the front room where the kittens are kept, Calico Jane is nursing one black kitten. I pick up my Tourister. It seems heavy. I look inside and there are her other four kittens. "Take care of my babies. Take them with you wherever you go."
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kittens
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William S. Burroughs |
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f6c3d20
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Many doctors are drawn to this profession (psychology) because they have an innate deficiency of insight into the motives, feelings and thoughts of others, a deficiency they hope to remedy by ingesting masses of data.
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William S. Burroughs |
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d141d46
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Well, as you can plainly see, the possibilities are endless like meandering paths in a great big beautiful garden.
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true
true-to-life
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William S. Burroughs |
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aad473d
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The broken image of Man moves in minute by minute and cell by cell.... Poverty, hatred, war, police-criminals, bureaucracy, insanity, all symptoms of The Human Virus.
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William S. Burroughs |
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30664b9
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A curse. Been in our family for generations. The Lees have always been perverts. I shall never forget the unspeakable horror that froze the lymph in my glands when the baneful word seared my reeling brain--I was a homosexual. I thought of the painted simpering female impersonators I'd seen in a Baltimore nightclub. Could it be possible I was one of those subhuman things? I walked the streets in a daze like a man with a light concussion. I w..
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William S. Burroughs |
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fcd51c9
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all abilities are paid for with disabilities. perfect health may entail the heavy toll of bovine stupidity. insight into one area involves blind spots in another. i could not have done what i have done as a writer had i been a gifted mathematician or physicist. honesty wrung out of him by pain, he cried out with a loud voice.
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William S. Burroughs |
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e12e4a9
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The dark Gods of pain are surfacing from the immemorial filth of time...
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William S. Burroughs |
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1e0aaf5
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What's with the serum?" I don't know, but it sounds ominous. We better put a telepathic direction finder on Benway. The man's not to be trusted. Might do almost anything...Turn a massacre into a sex orgy..." Or a joke." Precisely. Arty type...No principles..."
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arty-type
benway
burroughs
naked-lunch
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William S. Burroughs |
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a9c72c4
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O death where is thy sting? The man is never on time...
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drug-craze
transgression
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William S. Burroughs |
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b0da20d
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The white cat symbolizes the silvery moon prying into corners and cleansing the sky for the day to follow. The white cat is "the cleaner" or "the animal that cleans itself," described by the Sanskrit word Margaras, which means "the hunter who follows the track; the investigator; the skip tracer." The white cat is the hunter and the killer, his path lighted by the silvery moon. All dark, hidden places and beings are revealed in that inexorab..
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William S. Burroughs |
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63b0053
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Nobody's busting into YOUR apartment at three in the morning, are they? Well, then don't worry about what they're doing in South Korea and places like that. It's like the standard of living. Are you content to achieve your higher standard of living at the expense of people all over the world who've got a lower standard of living? Most Americans would say yes. Now we ask the question, are you content to enjoy your political freedom at the ex..
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politics
privilege
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William S. Burroughs |
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3afaff7
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In Mexico your wishes have a dream power. When you want to see someone, he turns up.
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William S. Burroughs |
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c0d7daa
|
Ever see a hot shot hit, kid? I saw the Gimp catch one in Philly. We rigged his room with a one-way whorehouse mirror and charged a sawski to watch it. He never got the needle out of his arm. They don't if the shot is right. That's the way they find them, dropper full of clotted blood hanging out of a blue arm. The look in his eyes when it hit --- Kid, it was tasty.
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William S. Burroughs |
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c7bd332
|
I had the feeling that all over America such stupid arguments were taking place on street corners and in bars and restaurants. All over America, people were pulling credentials out of their pockets and sticking them under someone else's nose to prove they had been somewhere or done something. And I thought someday everyone in America will suddenly jump up and say "I don't take any shit!" and start pushing and cursing and clawing at the man ..
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americans
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William S. Burroughs |
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fc374e7
|
There is a Senate and a Congress who carry on endless sessions discussing garbage disposal and outhouse inspection, the only two questions over which they have jurisdiction.
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William S. Burroughs |
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3fbdc97
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Criminal law is one of the few professions where the client buys someone else's luck. The luck of most people is strictly non-transferrable. But a good criminal lawyer can sell all his luck to a client, and the more luck he sells the more he has to sell.
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William S. Burroughs |
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58a170c
|
The conversations had a nightmare flatness, talking dice spilled in the tube metal chairs, human aggregates disintegrating in cosmic inanity, random events in a dying universe where everything is exactly what it appears to be, and no other relation than juxtaposition is possible.
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William S. Burroughs |
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9e59ba0
|
Fear of death is form of stasis horrors. The dead weight of time.
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horrors
stasis
time
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William S. Burroughs |
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91f6a67
|
he asked if i wouldn't like to live completely without problems, say in greece maybe, nice climate, everything provided? i say: "when we find out what we are actually doing and who we actually are, that is the point of living...it may be only a few seconds...a few seconds of significant actions, out of a lifetime..."
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William S. Burroughs |
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e728984
|
They say only love can create, so who the fuck could love up a centipede? He's got more love in him than I got. Now, killing a centipede makes me feel safer - like, one less.
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William S. Burroughs |
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da866f7
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For John Dillinger In hope he is still alive Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1986
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William S. Burroughs |
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c23e625
|
Rock and Roll adolescent hoodlums storm the streets of all nations. They rush into the Louvre and throw acid in the Mona Lisa's face.
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society
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William S. Burroughs |
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107739a
|
We're very near a certain point where money doesn't mean anything... They say: How much money is this going to cost? This is really a totally meaningless concept. Money determines less and less our reality. Money is not constant factor, it's simply a process dependent entirely on acceptance for its existence. We already see situations without money, and I think that we're coming closer and closer to it.
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William S. Burroughs |
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339078c
|
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.
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William S. Burroughs |
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e9766fb
|
The program of the ruling elite in Orwell's was: "A foot stamping on a human face forever!" This is naive and optimistic. No species could survive for even a generation under such program. This is not a program of eternal, or even long-range dominance. It is clearly an extermination program."
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elite-program
orwell
totalitarianism
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William S. Burroughs |
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e17f6e2
|
For the last four years of her life, Mother was in a nursing home called Chateins in St. Louis ... [S]ix months before she died I sent a Mother's Day card. There was a horrible, mushy poem in it. I remember feeling "vaguely guilty."
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mothers
neglect
old-age
parents
sentimentality
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William S. Burroughs |
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e54935d
|
A John is different from a sucker. When you're with a sucker you're on alert all the time. You give him nothing. A sucker is just to be taken but a John is different. You give him what he pays for. When you're with him you enjoy yourself and you want him to enjoy himself too.
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William S. Burroughs |
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1255e03
|
After Bill got his shot, a little color crept into his face and he would become almost coy. It was a gruesome sight. I remember once he told me how he'd been propositioned by a queer who offered him twenty dollars. Bill declined, saying "I don't think you would be very well satisfied." Bill twitched his fleshless hips. "You should see me in the nude," he said. "I'm really cute."
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William S. Burroughs |
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5ca5f61
|
home is where your ass is and if you want to move you move your ass the first step is learning to change homes with someone else and have someone else's ass.
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William S. Burroughs |
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4718676
|
To my way of thinking the function of the poet is to make us aware of what we know and don't know we know.
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poet
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William S. Burroughs |
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9a4628a
|
What are Americans? We've got everything from sharecroppers to atomic physicist here, and there's certainly no uniformity in their thought processes. There's very little they have in common. In fact, Americans should we say, have less in common than any other nationality.
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William S. Burroughs |
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faaed01
|
The Industrial Revolution is primarily a virus revolution, dedicated to proliferation of identical objects and persons. You are making soap, you don't give a shit who buys your soap, the more the soapier.
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William S. Burroughs |
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99059e1
|
A chaotic situation is always deliberately produced. Ask yourself who or what sort of creature could benefit from such a situation.
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William S. Burroughs |
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602afde
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A coprophage calls for a plate, shits on it and eats the shit, exclaiming, "Mmmm, that's my rich substance."
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William S. Burroughs |
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3e116e3
|
Democracy is cancerous, and bureaus are its cancer. A bureau takes root anywhere in the state, turns malignant like the Narcotic Bureau, and grows and grows, always reproducing more of its own kind, until it chokes the host if not controlled or excised. Bureaus cannot live without a host, being true parasitic organisms. (A cooperative on the other hand can live without the state. That is the road to follow. The building up of independent un..
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bureaucracy
bureaucratization
bureaucrats
cancer
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William S. Burroughs |
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3ff351c
|
There's a boy across the river with an ass like a peach; alas I was no swimmer and lost my Clementine.
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William S. Burroughs |
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019e55b
|
I don't spot junk neighbourhoods by the way they look, but by the feel, somewhat the same process by which a dowser locates hidden water. I am walking along and suddenly the junk in my cells moves and twitches like the dowsers wand: 'Junk here!
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drugs
heroin
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William S. Burroughs |
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6c46aaf
|
Now, boys, you won't see this operation performed very often and there's a reason for that... You see it has absolutely no medical value. No one knows what the purpose of it originally was or if it had a purpose at all. Personally I think it was a pure artistic creation from the beginning.
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William S. Burroughs |
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25ec15b
|
You're both mother fuckers." She was half asleep. Her voice was matter-of-fact as if referring to actual incest."
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William S. Burroughs |
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527f1c9
|
But there are higher stakes than youth or Latah, games where only two players in the world know what the stakes are.
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William S. Burroughs |
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26aee58
|
Junk sickness is the reverse side of junk kick. The kick of junk is that you have to have it. Junkies run on junktime and junkmetabolism. They are subject to junk climate. They are warmed and chilled by junk. The kick of junk is living under junk conditions. You cannot escape from junk sickness anymore than you can escape from junk kick after a shot.
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drugs
heroin
withdrawal
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William S. Burroughs |
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ff6e82a
|
Lee watched the thin hands, the beautiful violet eyes, the flush of excitement on the boy's face. An imaginary hand projected with such force it seemed Allerton must feel the touch of ectoplasmic fingers caressing his ear, phantom thumbs smoothing his eyebrows, pushing the hair back from his face. Now Lee's hands were running down his ribs, the stomach. Lee felt the aching pain of desire in his lungs.
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William S. Burroughs |
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10a8c33
|
The unworthies in power feel danger, like cows uneasily pawing the ground with a great "Moo."
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William S. Burroughs |