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William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs Quotes

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Famous William S. Burroughs Quotes

“The underground press serves as the only effective counter to a growing power, and more sophisticated techniques used by establishment mass media to falsify, misrepresent, misquote, rule out of consideration as a priori ridiculous, or simply ignore and blot out of existence: data, books, discoveries that they consider prejudicial to establishment interest.”

BookUsedInterestExistenceGrowingMediaInternetMassDiscoveryPressesTechniqueRidiculousDataConsiderationEstablishmentFree SpeechSophisticatedMass Media
Book:Ah Pook is here, and other texts
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“Well, "disgusting" doesn't refer to the books but to the subjective reaction of the person making the complaint. I don't think that anything is disgusting per se. These words "disgusting" and "filthy," etc., have prevented us from undertaking any scientific experimentation in sexual matters.”

ThinkingWellsPersonsBookMatterReactionsEtcDisgustingComplaintsSubjectiveUndertakingsExperimentationFilthy
Book:Burroughs Live: The Collected Interviews of William S. Burroughs, 1960-1997
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“It's a tract against capital punishment in the genre of Swift's Modest Proposal. I was simply following a formula to its logical conclusion. Some people appear to have understood it. The publication of Naked Lunch in England practically coincided with their abolition of capital punishment. The book obviously had a certain effect.”

PeopleBookCertainEffectsUnderstoodEnglandFollowingPunishmentNakedConclusionGenreLogicalFormulasLunchModestProposalPublicationAbolitionCapital Punishment
Author:William S. Burroughs
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“Writing prejudicial, off-putting reviews is a precise exercise in applied black magic. The reviewer can draw free-floating disagreeable associations to a book by implying that the book is completely unimportant without saying exactly why, and carefully avoiding any clear images that could capture the reader's full attention.”

WritingBookBlackAttentionClearMagicReaderExerciseDrawsCriticismCriticsReviewsCaptureAssociationAvoidingPreciseFloatingUnimportantDisagreeableReviewersImplyingBlack Magic
Author:William S. Burroughs
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