Anthony Burgess Quotes

"Women thrive on novelty and are easy meat for the commerce of fashion. Men prefer old pipes and torn jackets."
- Anthony Burgess
(Related: Men, Women, Commerce, Fashion, Novelty, Old)

"One of the delights known to age, and beyond the grasp of youth, is that of Not Going."
- Anthony Burgess
(Related: Age, Youth)

"Readers are plentiful: thinkers are rare."
- Anthony Burgess

"The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent, experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it, if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something."
- Anthony Burgess
(Related: Mistake, Common sense, Country, Needs, Temper)

"The downtrodden are the great creators of slang."
- Anthony Burgess
(Related: Slang)

"The possession of a book becomes a substitute for reading it."
- Anthony Burgess
(Related: Possession, Reading)

"To write is to become disinterested. There is a certain renunciation in art."
- Anthony Burgess
(Related: Art, Renunciation)

"It's always good to remember where you come from and celebrate it. To remember where you come from is part of where you're going."
- Anthony Burgess

"We all need money, but there are degrees of desperation."
- Anthony Burgess
(Related: Money, Desperation)

"The unconscious mind has a habit of asserting itself in the afternoon."
- Anthony Burgess
(Related: Habit, Mind, Unconscious)

"If you believe in an unseen Christ, you will believe in the unseen Christlike potential of others."
- Anthony Burgess
(Related: Christ, Potential, Will)

"I didn't think; I experimented."
- Anthony Burgess

"He said it was artificial respiration, but now I find I am to have his child."
- Anthony Burgess
(Related: Now)

"Every dogma has its day."
- Anthony Burgess
(Related: Day)

"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."
- Anthony Burgess
(Related: Books, University)

"Bath twice a day to be really clean, once a day to be passably clean, once a week to avoid being a public menace."
- Anthony Burgess
(Related: Being, Day, Public)

"Americans will listen, but they do not care to read. War and Peace must wait for the leisure of retirement, which never really comes: meanwhile it helps to furnish the living room."
- Anthony Burgess
(Related: Peace, War, Americans, Care, Leisure, Living, Retirement, Will)

"A novelist should not be too intelligent either, although... he may be permitted to be an intellectual."
- Anthony Burgess
(Related: May)

"Life is a wretched gray Saturday, but it has to be lived through."
- Anthony Burgess
(Related: Life)

"Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone."
- Anthony Burgess
(Related: Sleep, World)