“In a story you had to find a reason, but real life gets on very well without even Freudian motivations.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from Earthly Powers
“Look, I don't see why bad artists - I mean artists who are obviously incompetent... - why they should be presented hypocritically as good artists just because they're supposed to be advancing the frontiers of freedom of expression or... ...demonstrating that there should be no limit on subject matter.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from Earthly Powers
“There is only one kind of immorality in fiction, and that is when you write badly.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from Earthly Powers
“People don't want to know. They have to be made to know. Whether they act on what they know is up to them. But they have to know.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from Earthly Powers
“I was very lighthearted. This often the way when the abandonment of personal responsibility is enforced: neither wronged innocence or just guilt can seriously impair the sensation of freedom one has.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from Earthly Powers
“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.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from Earthly Powers
“I must give up seeing people, I told myself.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from Earthly Powers
“Have you by chance brought some real British tea? Twining’s? Or from Jackson’s in Piccadilly?”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from Earthly Powers
“Put it off for a bit. All life is putting off. Well, not entirely.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from Earthly Powers
“But don’t think that it’s a system or a culture or a state or a person that does the letting down. It’s our expectations that let us down. It begins in the warmth of the womb and the discovery that it’s cold outside. But it’s not the cold’s fault that it’s cold.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from Earthly Powers
“In other words, I heard life going on, and it was a comfort.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from Earthly Powers
“Man does not ask for nightmares, he does not ask to be bad. He does not will his own willfulness.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from Earthly Powers
“A man who serves language, however imperfectly, should always serve truth.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from Earthly Powers
“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 take it, we call a system of morality.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from Earthly Powers
“The danger of memory is that it can turn anyone into a prophet.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from Earthly Powers
“...I expected a gift, you know, something nice and useless...”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from Earthly Powers
“The religious impulse can be very dangerous. It damages, sometimes permanently.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from Earthly Powers
Anthony Burgess
Born place: in Harpurhey, England, The United Kingdom
Born date February 25, 1917
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“Earlier, I’d found Lark in the gym, telling her, “I’m giving Cyclops a bath.”
Her response: “Your funeral.”
― Kresley Cole, quote from Endless Knight
“That's how Tenleigh affected me. I wanted her so desperately I felt like some part of me was starving for her.”
― Mia Sheridan, quote from Kyland
“For David, they were souls to be saved. For Alex, they were target practice.”
― Angela Marsons, quote from Evil Games
“I have worried that you might think I did not take your question as seriously as I should have. I realize I have always believed there is a great Providence that, so to speak, waits ahead of us. A father holds out his hands to a child who is learning to walk, and he comforts the child with words and draws it toward him, but he lets the child feel the risk it is taking, and lets it choose its own courage and the certainty of love and comfort when he reaches his father over—I was going to say choose it over safety, but there is no safety. And there is no choice, either, because it is in the nature of the child to walk. As it is to want the attention and encouragement of the father. And the promise of comfort. Which it is in the nature of the father to give. I feel it would be presumptuous of me to describe the ways of God. Those that are all we know of Him, when there is so much we don’t know. Though we are told to call Him Father. And I know it would be presumptuous to speak as if the suffering that people feel as they pass through the world were not grave enough to make your question much more powerful than any answer I could offer. My faith tells me that God shared poverty, suffering, and death with human beings, which can only mean that such things are full of dignity and meaning, even though to believe this makes a great demand on one’s faith, and to act as if this were true in any way we understand is to be ridiculous. It is ridiculous also to act as if it were not absolutely and essentially true all the same. Even though we are to do everything we can to put an end to poverty and suffering.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Lila
“capital punishment means ‘them without the capital get the punishment.”
― Bryan Stevenson, quote from Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
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The Seeress of KellBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
