“Is it better for a man to have chosen evil than to have good imposed upon him?”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“We can destroy what we have written, but we cannot unwrite it.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“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, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“But what I do I do because I like to do.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“I see what is right and approve, but I do what is wrong.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“Oh it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh. The trombones crunched redgold under my bed, and behind my gulliver the trumpets three-wise silverflamed, and there by the door the timps rolling through my guts and out again crunched like candy thunder. Oh, it was wonder of wonders. And then, a bird of like rarest spun heavenmetal, or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now, came the violin solo above all the other strings, and those strings were like a cage of silk round my bed. Then flute and oboe bored, like worms of like platinum, into the thick thick toffee gold and silver. I was in such bliss, my brothers.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you watch them on a screen.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses to be bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“What's it going to be then, eh?”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“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, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“This must be a real horrorshow film if you're so keen on my viddying it.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“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, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“Then, brothers, it came. Oh, bliss, bliss and heaven. I lay all nagoy to the ceiling, my gulliver on my rookers on the pillow, glazzies closed, rot open in bliss, slooshying the sluice of lovely sounds. Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“It may not be nice to be good, little 6655321. It may be horrible to be good. And when I say that to you I realize how self-contradictory that sounds. I know I shall have many sleepless nights about this. 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? Deep and hard questions, little 6655321.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“Great Music, it said, and Great Poetry would like quieten Modern Youth down and make Modern Youth more Civilized. Civilized my syphilised yarbles.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“I said, smiling very wide and droogie: ‘Well, if it isn’t fat stinking billygoat Billyboy in poison. How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip-oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if you have any yarbles, you eunuch jelly, thou.’ And then we started.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“The next morning I woke up at oh eight oh oh hours, my brothers, and as I still felt shagged and fagged and fashed and bashed and my glazzies were stuck together real horrorshow with sleepglue, I thought I would not go to school.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now. ”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“Where do I come into all of this? Am I just some animal or dog?' And that started them off govoreeting real loud and throwing slovos at me. So I creeched louder still, creeching: 'Am I just to be like a clockwork orange?”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“I was always on my oddy knocky.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“Welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, well. To what do I owe the extreme pleasure of this surprising visit?”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“That's what it's going to be then, brothers, as I come to the like end of this tale. You have been everywhere with your little droog Alex, suffering with him, and you have viddied some of the most grahzny bratchnies old Bog ever made, all on to your old droog Alex. And all it was was that I was young. But now as I end this story, brothers, I am not young, not no longer, oh no. Alex like groweth up, oh yes.
But where I itty now, O my brothers, is all on my oddy knocky, where you cannot go. Tomorrow is all like sweet flowers and the turning young earth and the stars and the old Luna up there and your old droog Alex all on his oddy knocky seeking like a mate. And all that cal. A terrible grahzny vonny world, really, O my brothers. And so farewell from your little droog. And to all others in this story profound shooms of lipmusic brrrrrr. And they can kiss my sharries. But you, O my brothers, remember sometimes thy little Alex that was. Amen. And all that call.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“What I do I do because I like to do.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“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, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“But where I itty now, O my brothers, is all on my oddy knocky, where you cannot go. Tomorrow is all like sweet flowers and the turning vonny earth and the stars and the old Luna up there. ... And all that cal.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“They don't go into what is the cause of goodness, so why of the other shop? If lewdies are good that's because they like it, and I wouldn't ever interfere with their pleasures, and so of the other shop. And I was patronizing the other shop. More, 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 of the government and the judges and the schools cannot allow the bad because they cannot allow the self. And is not our modern history, my brothers, the story of the brave malenky selves fighting these big machines?”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess
Born place: in Harpurhey, England, The United Kingdom
Born date February 25, 1917
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