382 Quotes by Anthony Burgess

When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.

I like nothing better in this world than a good clean book, brother.

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.

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.

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

It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you watch them on a screen.

You're a romantic,” said Crabbe. “You expect too much. Reality's always dull, you know, but when we see that it's all there is, well-it miraculously ceases to be dull.

We can destroy what we have written, but we cannot unwrite it.

Language exists less to record the actual than to liberate the imagination.