What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?

— Anthony Burgess

What's all this about sin, eh?'' That,' I said, very sick. 'Using Ludwig van like that. He did no harm to anyone. Beethoven just wrote music.' And then I was really sick, and they had to bring a bowl that was in the shape of like a kidney.' Music,' said Dr. Brody, like musing. 'So you're keen on music. I know nothing about it myself. It's a useful emotional heightened, that's all I know. Well, well. What do you think about that, eh, Branom?'' It can't be helped,' said Dr. Branom. 'Each man kills the thing he loves...

— Anthony Burgess

What sort of world is it at all? Men on the moon and men spinning round the earth like it might be midges round a lamp, and there's not no attention paid to earthly law nor order no more.

— Anthony Burgess

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

— Anthony Burgess

When we're healthy we respond to the presence of the hateful with fear and nausea.

— Anthony Burgess

Without class differences England would cease to be the living theater it is.

— Anthony Burgess

Women thrive on novelty and are easy meat for the commerce of fashion. Men prefer old pipes and torn jackets.

— Anthony Burgess

Yes, yes yes, there it was. Youth must go, ah yes. But youth is only being in a way like it might be an animal. No, it is not just like being an animal so much as being one of these Maloney toys you giddy being sold in the streets, like little chellovecks made out of tin and with a spring inside and then a winding handle on the outside and you wind it up grrr grrr grrr and off it ditties, like walking, O my brothers. But it ditties in a straight line and bangs straight into things bang bang, and it cannot help what it is doing. Being young is like being like one of these Maloney machines.

— Anthony Burgess

You can giddy that everything in this wicked world counts. You can pony that one thing always leads to another. Right right right.

— Anthony Burgess

You got shook and shook till there was nothing left. You lost your name and your body and your self, and you just didn't care.

— Anthony Burgess