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
Anthony Burgess quotes about
critics
Writers are rarely their own best critics, nor are critics.
class-differences theatre england
Without class differences, England would cease to be the living theatre it is.
erotic england sisterly
I've always felt that English women had to be approached in a sisterly manner, rather than an erotic manner.
memories years two
In two thousand years all our generals and politicians may be forgotten, but Einstein and Madame Curie and Bernard Shaw and Stravinsky will keep the memory of our age alive.
opposites moral life-is
Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities.
goes-on ends
I start at the beginning, go on to the end, then stop.
rome cities belief
Rome's just a city like anywhere else. A vastly overrated city, I'd say. It trades on belief just as Stratford trades on Shakespeare.
fiction novel
All novels are experimental.
practice ideas world
The practice of fiction can be dangerous: it puts ideas into the head of the world.
memories soul sainthood
Immortality makes sense only when the individual soul can be thought of as merging into a great collective mush of sainthood. If we take anything with us into the next world, it is not what survives in the memories of our relicts.
agents literature cottages
With both agents and publishers hungry for bestsellers, literature will have to end up as a cottage industry.
memories confused maturity
As we grow older, the memories of early life brighten, those of maturity and senescence grow dim and confused.
future ideas pleasant
You have no idea how pleasant it is not to have any future. It's like having a totally efficient contraceptive.
responsibility guilt way
I was very lighthearted. This often the way when the abandonment of personal responsibility is enforced: neither wronged innocence or just guilt can seriously impair the sensation of freedom one has.