Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange Quotes

It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you watch them on a screen.

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

It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil.

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

To devastate is easier and more spectacular than to create.

I was always on my oddy knocky.

Oh? And what's so stinking about it?.

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

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

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

So we got hold of him and cracked him with a few good horrorshow tolchocks, but he still went on singing.

Of course it was horrible, ' smiled Dr. Branom. 'Violence is a very horrible thing. That's what you're learning now. Your body is learning it.

That's the law, son. But you were never much of a one for following the law.

The old days are dead and gone days. For what I did in the past I have been punished. I have been cured.

The Government cannot be concerned any longer with outmoded penelogical theories. Cram criminals together and see what happens, You get concentrated criminality, crime in the midst of punishment.

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.

Then there was like quiet and we were full of like hate, so smashed what was left to be smashed.

Feeling very surprised too at myself. I knew what was happening, O my brothers. I was like growing up.

You were not put on this earth just to get in touch with God.

There was no trust anywhere in the world, O my brothers, the way I could see it.

The intention to act violently is accompanied by strong feelings of physical distress.

The heresy of an age of reason, ' or some such slovos [words]. 'I see what is right and approve, but I do what is wrong.

You have no cause to grumble boy. You made your choice and all this is a consequence of your choice. Whatever now ensues is what you yourself have chosen.

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.

I like nothing better in this world than a good clean book, brother.

Well, everything's a lesson, isn't it? Learning all the time, as you could say.

A work of art is somehow organic, and to slash a painting or smash a statue is not just an offence against property: it is an offence against life.

The modern State, whether in a totalitarian or a democratic country, has far too much power, and we are probably right to fear it.

Dreams go by opposites I was once told.

The thrill of theft, of violence, the urge to live easy - is it worth it when we have undeniable proof, yes, yes, incontrovertible evidence that hell exists?

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

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?

And yet, in a sense, in choosing to be deprived of the ability to make an ethical choice, you have in a sense really chosen the good.

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

And now, talking of praying, I realise sadly that there will be little point in praying for you. You are passing now to a region where you will be beyond the reach of the power of prayer.