Anthony Burgess Quotes
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Rosemary was only a spinster in the strict sense of denotation. She was eminently, eminently nubile.
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…my two chronic diseases of gluttony and satyriasis…
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...To the mother hubbard girl, whose name seemed to be Janie: ‘It becomes you, it does really, that chunk of filthy butter muslin, but then you’re the sort of girl who could get away with anything, even having one tit bigger than the other.’ He did a comic oenophil act with the bottle of Marsovin...
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His real wife, his houri, his paramour was everywhere waiting, genie-like, in a bottle. The hymeneal gouging-off of the bottle-top, the kiss of the brown bitter yeasty flow, the euphoria far beyond the release of detumescence.
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Nabby Adams, supine on the bed, grunted. It was four o’clock in the morning and he did not want to be talking. He had had a confused coloured dream about Bombay, shot with sharp pangs of unpaid bills. Over it all had brooded thirst, thirst for a warmish bottle of Tiger beer. Or Anchor. Or Carlsberg. He said, 'Did you bring any beer back with you?'
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‘it excites the pancreas to fresh efforts’
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...the bathroom which Crabbe visited showed signs that Moneypenny now regarded even a lavatory as supererogatory.
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'How can slaves be sent by Allah? You all have hairless faces, the mark of the bondman.'
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I suppose the only real reason for travelling is to learn that all people are the same.
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The important thing is to get yourself born. You’re entitled to that. But you’re not entitled to life. Because if you were entitled to life, then the life would have to be quantified. How many years? Seventy? Sixty? Shakespeare was dead at fifty-two. Keats was dead at twenty-six. Thomas Chatterton at seventeen.
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It was all a matter of a Goddess – dark, hidden, deadly, horribly desirable.
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'The Government cannot be concerned any longer with outmoded penological theories....Common criminals...can best be dealt with on a purely curative basis. Kill the criminal reflex, that’s all.'
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an Australian….They have suffered under the yoke of the English…
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Lim Cheng Po, Anglican, Royalist, cricketer, respectable husband and father, allowed his animal reflexes out for an avenue walk on the lead.
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'…And the rising sun shall rise yet higher, destroying with its flaming fire the evil will of the wicked West, but smiling warmly on the rest'
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‘...You know what they call you expatriates? White leeches.’
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…enjoyed Dravidian transports.
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...even the police discussed this violence as possibly coming within the scope of their terms of reference.
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There must always be somebody. However young or insignificant. There has to be somebody who comes from nowhere to say what others are too foolish or too frightened to say.
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‘I know what is love. Love is man and woman in bed.’