When you cut into the present the future leaks out.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that focusing too much on the present can lead to missing future opportunities.
William S. Burroughs' quote illustrates the idea that our present actions and decisions are deeply intertwined with our future outcomes. By 'cutting' into the present, we may inadvertently disrupt the flow of time and potential, symbolized as the 'future leaking out.' This serves as a reminder to remain aware of how our current choices affect our long-term paths.
In practice
In a motivational speech about making decisions wisely, one might say, 'remember, when you cut into the present, the future leaks out.'
God save the Queen and a fascist regime β¦ a flabby toothless fascism, to be sure. Never go too far in any direction, is the basic law on which Limey-Land is built. The Queen stabilizes the whole sinking shithouse and keeps a small elite of wealth and privilege on top. The English have gone soft in the outhouse. England is like some stricken beast too stupid to know it is dead. Ingloriously foundering in its own waste products, the backlash and bad karma of empire
Like most qualities, cuteness is delineated by what it isn't. Most people aren't cute at all, or if so they quickly outgrow their cuteness ... Elegance, grace, delicacy, beauty, and a lack of self-consciousness: a creature who knows he is cute soon isn't.
There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.
Gentle reader, the Fountain of Youth is radioactive, and those who imbibe its poisonous heavy waters will suffer the hideous fate of decaying metal. Yet almost without exception, the wretched idiot inhabitants of our benighted planet would gulp down this radioactive excrement if it were offered.
Language is a virus from outer space.
One very important aspect of art is that it makes people aware of what they know and donβt know they know... Once the breakthrough is made, there is a permanent expansion of awareness. But there is always a reaction of rage, of outrage, at the first breakthrough... So the artist, then, expands awareness. And once the breakthrough is made, this becomes part of the general awareness.
Keats mourned that the rainbow, which as a boy had been for him a magic thing, had lost its glory because the physicists had found it resulted merely from the refraction of the sunlight by the raindrops. Yet knowledge of its causation could not spoil the rainbow for me. I am sure that it is not given to man to be omniscient. There will always be something left to know, something to excite the imagination of the poet and those attuned to the great world in which they live (p. 64)
Chaos is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence.
I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens.
History... is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
I've now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.
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