Anthony Burgess
Anthony Burgess
John Anthony Burgess Wilson, FRSL – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English writer and composer. From relatively modest beginnings in a Catholic family in Manchester, he eventually became one of the best known English literary figures of the latter half of the twentieth century...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth25 February 1917
world literature apocalypse
As we are all solipsists, and all die, the world dies with us. Only very minor literature aims at apocalypse.
solitude world modern
To be left alone is the most precious thing one can ask of the modern world.
mad world sanity
Sanity is a handicap and liability if you're living in a mad world.
men world lice
Do they merit vitriol, even a drop of it? Yes, because they corrupt the young, persuading them that the mature world, which produced Beethoven and Schweitzer, sets an even higher value on the transient anodynes of youth than does youth itself.... They are the Hollow Men. They are electronic lice.
ignorance world poverty
Ignorance and poverty are the best condiments for the great feast of the world, but the inexperienced and poor are never invited to it.
practice ideas world
The practice of fiction can be dangerous: it puts ideas into the head of the world.
world violence life-is
Delimitation is always difficult. The world is one, life is one. The sweetest and most heavenly of activities partake in some measure of violence - the act of love, for instance; music, for instance.
god glasses world
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.
average branch chain large number university
Books in a large university library system: 2,000,000. Books in an average large city library: 10,000. Average number of books in a chain bookstore: 30,000. Books in an average neighborhood branch library: 20,000.
civilised
Civilised my syphilised yarbles.
school government self
The not-self cannot have the bad, meaning they of the government and the judges and the schools cannot allow the bad because they cannot allow the self.
character past chess-pieces
A character, to be acceptable as more than a chess piece, has to be ignorant of the future, unsure about the past, and not at all sure of what he's supposed to be doing.
pay bills gas
Death comes along like a gas bill one can't pay.
interesting choices relief
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.