Burgess Quotes

This truth may be handled either sinfully or profitably; sinfully as when it is treated on only to satisfy curiosity, and to keep up a mere barren speculative dispute ... This point of election ... is not to be agitated in a verbal and contentious way, but in a saving way, to make us tremble and to set us upon a more diligent and close striving with God in prayer, and all other duties. ~ Anthony Burgess

There´s nothing I have to do. And nowhere I have to be. With no destination, no map, and no agenda. I´m free to just wander. ~ Gemma Burgess

It's a stinking world because it lets the young get on to the old like you done, and there's no law nor order no more. ~ Anthony Burgess

When I was a child I used to read books by Gerald Durrell, who founded Jersey Zoo. He had a job collecting animals for zoos and for a long time that is what I wanted to do. Later when I was a teenager I had a fantastic English teacher called Mrs. Stafford. Her enthusiasm made me decide to be a writer. ~ Melvin Burgess

It had this amazing spicy, pee-y smell. ~ Melvin Burgess

It is not the novelist's job to preach; it is his duty to show. ~ Anthony Burgess

And what, brothers, I had to escape into sleep from then was the horrible and wrong feeling that it was better to get the hit than give it. If that veck had stayed I might even have like presented the other cheek. ~ Anthony Burgess

Try it. You don't have to do it ever again if you don't want to. But try it once. Try everything once. ~ Melvin Burgess

Most things in life are only as difficult as you allow them to be. ~ Gemma Burgess

Rome's just a city like anywhere else. A vastly overrated city, I'd say. It trades on belief just as Stratford trades on Shakespeare. ~ Anthony Burgess

I also play fiddle, banjo and mandolin. ~ Sonny Burgess

Humankind has endless potential, but shows an endless capacity to fall short of that promise. ~ Mark E. Burgess

Go on, do me in, you bastard cowards, I don't want to live anyway, not in a stinking world like this one.' I told Dim to lay off a bit then, because it used to interest me sometimes to slooshy what some of these starry decreps had to say about life and the world. I said: 'Oh. And what's stinking about it? ~ Anthony Burgess

A work of fiction should be, for its author, a journey into the unknown, and the prose should convey the difficulties of the journey. ~ Anthony Burgess

He said it was artificial respiration, but now I find I am to have his child. ~ Anthony Burgess

All the rules had to be invented from the beginning. No one knew what the rules were, but gradually figured them out. The basics were: We've got to take a line. We've got to stay up off the floor. We have to have enough light to see. And we have to save enough air to get out. ~ Robert F. Burgess

My mama always said, You can always ask. The worst they can do is say no. But I don't think Mama was thinking about revenge and murder when she dealt out that piece of homespun advice ~ Catrina Burgess

Then we slooshied. ~ Anthony Burgess

Fake it till you feel it ~ Gemma Burgess

As a chamber hung round about with looking-glasses represents the face upon every turn, thus all the world doth the mercy and the bounty of God; though that be visible, yet it discovers an invisible God and his invisible properties. ~ Anthony Burgess

I was eighteen now, just gone. Eighteen was not a young age. At eighteen old Wolfgang Amadeus had written concertos and symphonies and operas and oratorios and all that cal, no, not cal, heavenly music. And then there was old Felix M. with his "Midsummer Night's Dream" Overture. And there were others. And there was this like French poet set by old Benjy Britt, who had done all his best poetry by the age of fifteen, O my brothers. Arthur, his first name. Eighteen was not all that young an age then. But what was I going to do? ~ Anthony Burgess

Don't worry about paying me. Stay alive, child. You must save yourself. And, whatever you do, don't forget who you are ~ Catrina Burgess

Every dogma has its day. ~ Anthony Burgess

John Kenneth Galbraith and Marshall McLuhan are the two greatest modern Canadians that the U.S. has produced. ~ Anthony Burgess

As for the new world war that's waiting in the womb of time, a healthily developed foetus, who can say what will spark it, how destructive it will be? We've already played at this war in film and fiction, indicating that there's a part of us that desperately wants it. What nonsense writers and filmmakers talk when they say that their terrible visions are meant as a warning. [ ... ] It's sheer wish fulfillment. War ... is a culture pattern. It's a legitimate mode of cultural transmission ... ~ Anthony Burgess

It'll be your own torture," he said, serious. "I hope to God it'll torture you to madness. ~ Anthony Burgess

A flip dark chill winter bastard though dry ~ Anthony Burgess

Wine, it's in my veins and I can't get it out. ~ Burgess Meredith

The more sin he sees, the more his belief in Original Sin is confirmed. Everyone likes to have his deepest convictions confirmed: that is one of the most abiding of human satisfaction. ~ Anthony Burgess

And so I hunger for something that is permanent, something that will last forever. Truth, I am told, is a thing that will last forever. ~ Anthony Burgess

You had the feeling they were nice because they'd decided it was the fashion to be nice. ~ Melvin Burgess

We strive for error-free medicine in a world that is sometimes all too human. ~ Michael Burgess

And I sort of frowned about that, thinking. 'You felt ill this afternoon,' he said, 'because you're getting better. When we're healthy we respond to the presence of the hateful with fear and nausea. You're becoming healthy, that's all. ~ Anthony Burgess

Writers are rarely their own best critics, nor are critics. ~ Anthony Burgess

For the serious artist does not satisfy needs ~ Anthony Burgess

The intention to act violently is accompanied by strong feelings of physical distress. ~ Anthony Burgess

Churchill had a black dog. I have singledom,' she says, exhaling theatrically. 'I will die alone. ~ Gemma Burgess

I am everyone's friend,'I said.'Except to my enemies. ~ Anthony Burgess

I'll just take amusement at being a paradox. ~ Burgess Meredith

Her heart is older than her head; yea, her emotion is the mother of her reason ~ Gelett Burgess

One of the delights known to age, and beyond the grasp of youth, is that of Not Going. ~ Anthony Burgess

A novelist should not be too intelligent either, although ... he may be permitted to be an intellectual. ~ Anthony Burgess

When Medicare was first enacted in 1965, it provided coverage for hospitalization, doctor visits and surgeries, but there was no coverage for prescription medications. ~ Michael Burgess

There is the devastatingly simple, yet profound, moral dilemma, which underlies the book: is it better for a man to choose to be bad than to be conditioned to be good? ~ Anthony Burgess

If you expect the worst from a person you can never be disappointed. ~ Anthony Burgess

If anyone has the opportunity to work with that woman, jump at it. She is the most generous, most giving director I have ever worked with in my entire life. She is classy. She speaks a dozen difference languages. ~ Tituss Burgess

To change the world, a country, an organization, a community, a relationship, begin with the smallest seed of change: begin with yourself. That is what this book is all about. ~ Gloria Burgess

She flashed it at him. "May we do some more?" "We can do whatever you want," he agreed, sweeping her hair from her flushed face, any excuse to touch her, to capture the exhilarating energy bursting through her forgotten armor, to absorb a small yet astounding piece of a woman unlike any other. A small moment with her was worth a million moments with anyone else, and he would steal them as often as possible. ~ B.C. Burgess

In two thousand years all our generals and politicians may be forgotten, but Einstein and Madame Curie and Bernard Shaw and Stravinsky will keep the memory of our age alive. ~ Anthony Burgess

Where readers of Murdoch can begin a new novel with a quiet confidence, opening a Burgess book is an exercise in anxiety: what the devil is he up to this time? ~ Thomas C. Foster

Life is so much better when your passion and calling line up. You understand the gift of your spiritual inheritance, assume responsibility for right and just choices, and you pour your signature presence into serving others. ~ Gloria Burgess

When a man cannot chose, he ceases to be a man. ~ Anthony Burgess

It's mind control, see. You have to go to school, get those exams, get to university or college, get a job, get married, don't miss the boat, do it now or you'll shoot your life down the drain. Yeah. They got you as soon as you were born. They never risked a second of your life. When you have kids they'll be telling them they have to wear a plastic mask and put a penny in the slot about their nose before they can breathe in. ~ Melvin Burgess

...the whatness of Allbook. ~ Anthony Burgess

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

Nuclear power is an important part of our domestic fuel mix. ~ Michael Burgess

Old friends, we say, are best, when some sudden disillusionment shakes our faith in a new comrade. ~ Gelett Burgess

A Clockwork Orange is too didactic to be artistic. It is not the novelist's job to preach; it is his job to show. ~ Anthony Burgess

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

Maxims are like lawyers who must need to see but one side of the case. ~ Gelett Burgess

A work of art is somehow organic, and to slash a painting or smash a statue is not just an offence against property: it is an offence against life. ~ Anthony Burgess

That's her secret, I suppose. Everything that happens to her she's proud of. She makes it special by it happening to her. ~ Melvin Burgess

The danger of memory is that it can turn anyone into a prophet. ~ Anthony Burgess

In other words, I heard life going on, and it was a comfort. ~ Anthony Burgess

I chart a little first-list of names, rough synopsis of chapters, and so on. But one daren't overplan; so many things are generated by the sheer act of writing. ~ Anthony Burgess

Love is a secret society, a community for two. ~ Melvin Burgess

Destruction, best expressed in this age in which I write as terrorism, is truly there for its own sake, but the pretense of religion or secular patriotism converts the destructive into the speciously creative. ~ Anthony Burgess

If I had died it would have been even better for you political bratchnies, would it not, pretending and treacherous droogs as you are.' But all that came out was er er er. ~ Anthony Burgess

The state is never so efficient as when it wants money. ~ Anthony Burgess

To appreciate nonsense requires a serious interest in life. ~ Gelett Burgess

What's in a name? Sometimes a lot of real work. ~ Thornton W. Burgess

He would have shaved the centaurs, dipped them in honey, covered them with feathers, and hung them up like a bunch of pinatas. I'm just saying. - Warren ~ Brandon Mull

If you can break a day down into quarters, then hours then half hours then minutes, you can chew down any stretch of time into bite sized. ~ Marlon James

Put it off for a bit. All life is putting off. Well, not entirely. ~ Anthony Burgess

Odorous as a crateful of bad eggs with the miasma of original sin. ~ Anthony Burgess

The old days are dead and gone days. For what I did in the past I have been punished. I have been cured. ~ Anthony Burgess

Fumbling for a word is everybody's birthright. ~ Anthony Burgess

If you write fiction you are, in a sense, corrupted. There's a tremendous corruptibility for the fiction writer because you're dealing mainly with sex and violence. These remain the basic themes, they're the basic themes of Shakespeare whether you like it or not. ~ Anthony Burgess

It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now. ~ Anthony Burgess

To be able to detect the outbreak of avian flu anywhere in the world is going to require a partnership of several countries that will share information and samples, but it is important to remember a threat anywhere is a threat everywhere. ~ Michael Burgess

All I can tell you is what I see at home- a lot of lessons learned from '86. That, 'OK, we'll go one-time amnesty and after that we'll really be good.' But nobody believes it this time, nobody believes it. ~ Michael C. Burgess

The practice of fiction can be dangerous: it puts ideas into the head of the world. ~ Anthony Burgess

Sometimes maybe you need an experience. The experience can be a person or it can be a drug. The experience opens a door that was there all the time but you never saw it. Or maybe it blasts you into outer space ... All that negative stuff. All the pain ... It just floted away from me, I just floated away from it ... up and away ... ~ Melvin Burgess

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

The trombones crunched redgold under my bed, and behind my gulliver the trumpets threewise silverflamed, ~ Anthony Burgess

Robert clears his throat. 'So, ladies and gentlemen, if I may, I'd like to encourage you to turn to the one you love – or, if you are between loves right now, then the nearest person of the opposite sex, provided of course that their significant other doesn't
mind – and tell them that you love them. No caveats, no limited time only, no terms and conditions: be true
to yourself, take a risk, and tell them you love them. To love! ~ Gemma Burgess

Well, well, well, well. If it isn't fat, stinking billygoat Billy-Boy in poison. How art thou, thy globby bottle of cheap, stinking chip-oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if you have any yarbles, you eunuch jelly thou. ~ Anthony Burgess

Life's only choosing when to die. Life's a big postponement because the choice is so difficult. It's a tremendous relief not to have to choose. ~ Anthony Burgess

Son, heed my instruction, and apply thyself to know women; let thine eyes observe her when she is with another, for what she doeth with him, she will do with thee, also. ~ Gelett Burgess

The fear of women is the beginning of knowledge. ~ Gelett Burgess

Bedways is rightways now, so best we go homeways. ~ Anthony Burgess

Whenever you break up with someone, you don't just break up with one person. You break up with their family, their friends and their dog. It's sad, inevitable and kind of annoying. ~ Gemma Burgess

I believe that States should be credited for their non-Federal investment in revenue-generating transportation facilities to address their regional transportation needs. ~ Michael Burgess

Plum smiles, sighs, and shakes her head. 'No. You know, I thought Dan was a good guy. Maybe there are no good guys left. ~ Gemma Burgess

And, my brothers, it was real satisfaction to me to waltz-left two three, right two three-and carve left cheeky and right cheeky, so that like two curtains of blood seemed to pour out at the same time, one on either side of his fat filthy oily snout in the winter starlight. ~ Anthony Burgess

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

Nuclear power is here to stay, and we need to support a strong domestic uranium industry. ~ Michael Burgess

When we come to describe musical instruments we should treat them as the artworks of outstanding, intelligent craftsmen who have brought them into being by manual labor and intellectual effort. By applying precise plans to suitable materials they have skillfully fashioned instruments that publish the glory of God, or (which is perfectly legitimate) give pleasure to mankind with their sweet harmonious sounds. - Michael Praetorius, Syntagma Musicum (1619) ~ Geoffrey Burgess

There were fat cats and skinny cats. The long-tailed and the bobbed. The daring young leapers, and the old windowsill sleepers. Balls of waddling fluff, smooth-coated prowlers, and hairless ones that looked fragile and wise. The tiger-striped, the ring-tailed, and the ones with matching coloured socks and mittens. There were tabbies and calicos. Manx and Persians. Siamese and Bombay. Ragdolls and Birmans. Maine Coons and Russian Blues. There were Snowshoes and Somalis, Tonkinese and Turkish, and many, many more. Brown and beige and orange and grey and black and white and silver cats, each with gleaming eyes of emerald, or sapphire, or amber. A rainbow of precious stones. ~ Brooke Burgess

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