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 More Quotes by Anthony Burgess More Quotes From Anthony Burgess Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone. Anthony Burgess love relationship life To be left alone is the most precious thing one can ask of the modern world. Anthony Burgess modern solitude world 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 choices evil order I conclude that there is as much sense in nonsense as there is nonsense in sense. Anthony Burgess nonsense human-nature Sanity is a handicap and liability if you're living in a mad world. Anthony Burgess sanity mad world Do they merit vitriol, even a drop of it? Yes, because they corrupt the young, persuading them that the mature world, which produced Beethoven and Schweitzer, sets an even higher value on the transient anodynes of youth than does youth itself.... They are the Hollow Men. They are electronic lice. Anthony Burgess merit doe men It's always good to remember where you come from and celebrate it. To remember where you come from is part of where you're going. Anthony Burgess celebration hymns where-you-come ...We're a government that believes in everybody having the illusion of free will. Anthony Burgess free-will government believe The book I am best known for, or only known for, is a novel I am prepared to repudiate: written a quarter of a century ago, a jeu d'esprit knocked off for money in three weeks, it became known as the raw material for a film which seemed to glorify sex and violence. The film made it easy for readers of the book to misunderstand what it was about, and the misunderstanding will pursue me till I die. I should not have written the book because of this danger of misinterpretation. Anthony Burgess violence book sex Art is rare and sacred and hard work, and there ought to be a wall of fire around it. Anthony Burgess wall hard-work art There is, in fact, not much point in writing a novel unless you can show the possibility of moral transformation, or an increase in wisdom, operating in your chief character or characters. Anthony Burgess writing character facts 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 choices doe men Literature ceases to be literature when it commits itself to moral uplift; it becomes moral philosophy or some such dull thing. Anthony Burgess uplifting literature philosophy Every dogma has its day. Anthony Burgess dogma life-and-love Is it better for a man to have chosen evil than to have good imposed upon him? Anthony Burgess dystopia evil men Fumbling for a word is everybody's birthright. Anthony Burgess birthright Language exists less to record the actual than to liberate the imagination. Anthony Burgess records language imagination ... A CLOCKWORK ORANGE- and I said: 'That's a fair gloopy title. Who ever heard of a clockwork orange?' Then I read a malenky bit out loud in a sort of very high type preaching goloss: '- The attempt to impose upon a man, a creature of growth and capable of sweetness, to ooze juicily at the last round the bearded lips of God, to attempt to impose, I say, laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation, against this I raise my swordpen- Anthony Burgess orange law men When a man cannot chose, he ceases to be a man. Anthony Burgess be-a-man choices men When the State withers, humanity flowers. Anthony Burgess states flower humanity
