Anthony Burgess Quotes

“The possession of a book becomes a substitute for reading it.”
― Anthony Burgess

“Suddenly, I viddied what I had to do, and what I had wanted to do, and that was to do myself in; to snuff it, to blast off for ever out of this wicked, cruel world. One moment of pain perhaps and, then, sleep forever, and ever and ever.”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry. The Korova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O my brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like, things changing so skorry these days, and everybody very quick to forget, newspapers not being read much neither.”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“The sweetest and most heavenly of activities partake in some measure of violence - the act of love, for instance; music, for instance. You must take your chance, boy. The choice has been all yours.”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“Well, everything's a lesson, isn't it? Learning all the time, as you could say.”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“And those hard slovos, brothers, were like the beginning of my freedom.”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“One thing I could never stand was to see a filthy dirty old drunky howling away at the filthy songs of his fathers and going blurp blurp in between as it might be a filthy old orchestra in his stinking rotten guts;I could never stand to see anyone like that. whatever his age might be, but more especially when he was real old like this one was.”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“When we're healthy we respond to the presence of the hateful with fear and nausea.”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“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?”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“Being young is like being like one of these malenky machines.”
― Anthony Burgess

“You got shook and shook till there was nothing left. You lost your name and your body and your self and you just didn't care.”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“You can viddy that everything in this wicked world counts. You can pony that one thing always leads to another. Right right right.”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“And yet, in a sense, in choosing to be deprived of the ability to make an ethical choice, you have in a sense really chosen the good.”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“The intention to act violently is accompanied by strong feelings of physical distress.”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“You have no cause to grumble boy. You made your choice and all this is a consequence of your choice. Whatever now ensues is what you yourself have chosen.”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“And now, talking of praying, I realise sadly that there will be little point in praying for you. You are passing now to a region where you will be beyond the reach of the power of prayer.”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“Bondade é que se escolhe. Quando um homem não pode escolher, ele deixa de ser um homem.”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening.”
― Anthony Burgesse

“One's first memories are often vicarious: one is told that one did something or was involved in something; one dramatizes it and folds the image falsely into the annals of the truly remembered.”
― Anthony Burgess, Little Wilson and Big God

“Madem kimileri iyi insan olmayı seçiyor, madem bundan haz alıyorlar, onlara hayatta karışmam, kimse de bana karışmasın. Ama bana karışıyorlardı. Üstelik kötülük bireye özgüdür, sizlere, bana ve tek tabancalığımıza özgüdür ve bizleri yaratan bizim Tanrı'dır, hem de gururla ve keyifle yaratmıştır. Ama birey olmayan şeyler kötülüğe katlanamazlar, yani devlet ve yargıçlar ve okullar kötülüğe izin vermezler çünkü bireylere izin veremezler. Hem modern tarihimiz, bu büyük makinelerle savaşan cesur, küçük bireylerin öyküsü değil midir kardeşlerim? Bu konuda ciddiyim kardeşlerim. Ama yaptıklarımı sevdiğim için yapıyorum.”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange