“Is it better for a man to have chosen evil than to have good imposed upon him?”
~Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962)
“The East would always present that calm face of faint astonishment, unmoved at the anger, not understanding the bitterness.”
~Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (1956)
“It had, perhaps, not been a very edifying life. On the booze in England, in India, in Malaya… And then a couple of gins for breakfast and then the first beers of the day in a kedai … He had been driven out of that Eden…because of his sinful desire to taste what was forbidden.”
~Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (1956)
“Her face was that of a boy gang-leader, smooth with the innocence of one who, by the same quirk as blinds a man to the mystery of whistling or riding a bicycle, has never mastered the art of affection or compassion or properly learned the moral dichotomy.”
~Anthony Burgess, The Enemy in the Blanket (1958)
“Trade and gambling and a woman occasionally - that was a man’s life.”
~Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (1959)
“He seemed to lose interest in the subject of his daughter, glooming at a yellow card of ancient railway regulations on the wall. But when the harbingers of the coming train were audible – porters trundling, a scrambled gabble from the station announcer, frantic blowing on hot tea – he became eager again and was out swiftly on to the platform. I followed him. The train slid in. I saw the driver look down disdainful from his cosy hell, sharing – like soldier and auxiliary – a mystique with the tea-room woman. Passengers, disillusioned with arrival, got out greyly amid grey steam; passengers, hungry for the illusion of getting somewhere, jostled their way on.”
~Anthony Burgess, The Right to an Answer (1960)
“She was an appetising woman with a full-cheeked smile, about thirty, a Nordic blonde but not icy, though ice was suggested in its tamed winter-sport aspects : the flush after skating, log-fires and hot rum and butter, fine heavy thighs, that would warm your hand like a muff, under a skirt that had swirled in a rink waltz. Her beaver lamb coat was thrust back from a green suit : solid charms, thoroughly wholesome, were indicated.”
~Anthony Burgess, The Right to an Answer (1960)
“After all, what bit of money I’ve made has been made among mosquitoes and sand-flies, snakes in the bedroom, long monotonous damp heat, boredom, exasperation with native clerks. Who are these sweet stay-at-homes, sweet well-contents, to try and suck it out of me and feel aggrieved if they can’t have it?”
~Anthony Burgess, The Right to an Answer (1960)
“Love seems inevitable, necessary, as normal and as easy a process as respiration.”
~Anthony Burgess, The Right to an Answer (1960)
“The window opened gently and a still Autumn night entered cat-like. Edwin smelt freedom and London autumn – decay, smoke, cold, motor oil.”
~Anthony Burgess, The Doctor is Sick (1960)
“Edwin, so much himself a sham, felt a sort of kinship with the sham pleasures of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street as they travelled painfully towards Soho.”
~Anthony Burgess, The Doctor is Sick (1960)
“There was a silence. Outside, and most unfortunately, a boy could be heard calling to another boy: ‘Piss off, Cowie.’ Stern looks were fixed on Woolton.”
~Anthony Burgess, The Worm and the Ring (1960)
“There were…smiles of encouragement for Lydgate, and some smiles of sweet pity as well, as for the only leper present.”
~Anthony Burgess, Devil of a State (1961)
“I suppose the only real reason for travelling is to learn that all people are the same.”
~Anthony Burgess, One Hand Clapping (1961)
“My son, my son. When I had my son I would explain all that to him when he was starry enough to like understand. But then I knew he would not understand or would not want to understand at all and would do all the veshches [things] I had done...and I would not be able to really stop him. And nor would he be able to stop his own son, brothers. And so it would itty on to like the end of the world.”
~Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962)
“There was no real need...of crasting any more pretty polly to tolchock some old veck in an alley and viddy him swim in his blood while we counted the takings and divided by four, nor to do the ultra-violent on some shivering starry grey-haired ptitsa in a shop and go smecking off with the till’s guts.”
~Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962)
“If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange—meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil.”
~Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962)
“The Government cannot be concerned any longer with outmoded penological theories....Common criminals...can best be dealt with on a purely curative basis. Kill the criminal reflex, that’s all.”
~Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962)
“The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities.”
~Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962)
“We can destroy what we have written, but we cannot unwrite it.”
~Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962)
“A perverse nature can be stimulated by anything. Any book can be used as a pornographic instrument, even a great work of literature if the mind that so uses it is off-balance. I once found a small boy masturbating in the presence of the Victorian steel-engraving in a family Bible.”
~Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962)
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