"After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military."

Action

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Thematic Reflection

This quotation examines the core nature of Action as articulated by William S. Burroughs. Within historical and literary traditions, reflections on Action provide actionable mental models, challenging individuals to evaluate personal ethics, self-discipline, and daily actions.

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About William S. Burroughs

William Seward Burroughs II was an American writer and visual artist. He is widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a postmodern author who influenced underground and popular culture and literature. Much of Burroughs's work is experimental and features unreliable narrators. Also noted as semi-autobiographical, his work often drew from his experiences with drug addiction, and featured his various places of residence as settings in much of his work. With Brion Gysin, Burroughs popularized the cut-up, an aleatory literary technique. His writing also engaged frequent mystical, occult, or otherwise magical themes, constant preoccupations in his fiction and real life.

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More by William S. Burroughs

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

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

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

— William S. Burroughs
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More about Action

"Do not measure life by the breaths you take, but by the moments that stir your soul. A lesson woven into the fabric of human history — an essential principle for the reflective life."

— Paula Gunn Allen
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"We loved everything. We wanted to be able to do anything."

— Jim Capaldi
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"I prefer to think of myself as a musician who is still learning and trying to do something every time out."

— Geddy Lee
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"I want to wake up every day and do whatever comes in my mind, and not feel pressure or obligations to do anything else in my life."

— Michael Jordan
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