“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, book The Western Lands

Source: The Western Lands (1987), ch. 5, as cited in The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (1993), pg. 234

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William S. Burroughs110

American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, a… 1914–1997

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“A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.”

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