Anthony Burgess Quotes

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

on Philosophy

"There is only one kind of immorality in fiction, and that is when you write badly."

on Writing

"Colonialism. The enforced spread of the rule of reason. But who is going to spread it among the colonizers?"

on Philosophy

"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."

on Truth

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

on Writing

"Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man."

on Philosophy

"To devastate is easier and more spectacular than to create."

on Wisdom

"The heresy of an age of reason. I see what is right and approve, but I do what is wrong."

on Philosophy

"The danger of memory is that it can turn anyone into a prophet."

on Philosophy

"To write is to become disinterested. There is a certain renunciation in art."

on Writing

"The downtrodden who are the great creators of slang hurl pithiness and colour at poverty and oppression."

on Wisdom

"Wedged as we are between two eternities of idleness, there is no excuse for being idle now."

on Life

"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."

on Life

"Senseless violence is a prerogative of youth, which has much energy but little talent for the constructive."

on Life

"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."

on Philosophy