1
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
2
In a story you had to find a reason, but real life gets on very well without even Freudian motivations.Anthony Burgess
3
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
4
There is only one kind of immorality in fiction, and that is when you write badly.Anthony Burgess
5
The danger of memory is that it can turn anyone into a prophet.Anthony Burgess
6
A man who serves language, however imperfectly, should always serve truth.Anthony Burgess
7
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
8
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
9
Man does not ask for nightmares, he does not ask to be bad. He does not will his own willfulness.Anthony Burgess
10
...I expected a gift, you know, something nice and useless...Anthony Burgess
11
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