Quotes by Anthony Burgess

“The thrill of theft, of violence, the urge to live easy - is it worth it when we have undeniable proof, yes, yes, incontrovertible evidence that hell exists?”

“You were not put on this earth just to get in touch with God.”

“Minister: As I was saying, Alex, you can be instrumental in changing the public verdict. Do you understand, Alex? Have I made myself clear?Alex: As an unmuddied lake, Fred. As clear as an azure sky...”

“Then there was like quiet and we were full of like hate, so smashed what was left to be smashed.”

“I can't accept that a work of fiction should be either immoral or moral. It should merely show the world as it is and have no moral bias.”

“It is for the reader to see in the book the nature of the motives of human actions and perhaps learn something too of the motives behind the social forces which judge those actions and which, I tak...”

“Badness is of the self, the one, the you or me on our oddy knockies, and that self is made by old Bog or God and is his great pride and radosty. But the not-self cannot have the bad, meaning they o...”

“Colonialism. The enforced spread of the rule of reason. But who is going to spread it among the colonizers?”

“...I expected a gift, you know, something nice and useless...”

“Some of us have to fight. There are great traditions of liberty to defend. I am no partisan man. Where I see the infamy I seek to erase it. Party names mean nothing. The tradition of liberty means ...”

“To be left alone is the most precious thing one can ask of the modern world.”

“The Government cannot be concerned any longer with outmoded penelogical theories. Cram criminals together and see what happens, You get concentrated criminality, crime in the midst of punishment.”

“The old days are dead and gone days. For what I did in the past I have been punished. I have been cured.”

“That's the law, son. But you were never much of a one for following the law.”

“Of course it was horrible,' smiled Dr. Branom. 'Violence is a very horrible thing. That's what you're learning now. Your body is learning it.”

“Our subject is, you see, impelled towards the good by, paradoxically, being impelled towards evil. The intention to act violently is accompanied by strong feelings of physical distress. To counter ...”

“Delimitation is always difficult. The world is one, life is one. The sweetest and most heavenly of activities partake in some measure of violence - the act of love, for instance; music, for instance.”

“And what, brothers, I had to escape into sleep from then was the horrible and wrong feeling that it was better to get the hit than give it. If that veck had stayed I might even have like presented ...”

“We're a government that believes in everybody having the illusion of free will.”

“An eye for an eye, I say. If someone hits you you hit back, do you not? Why then should not the State, very severely hit by you brutal hooligans, not hit back also? But the new view is to say no. T...”