Quotes by Anthony Burgess

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
Every dogma has its day.
– Anthony Burgess
I didn't think; I experimented.
– Anthony Burgess
I must say that acting was good training for the political life that lay ahead of us.
– Anthony Burgess
If you believe in an unseen Christ, you will believe in the unseen Christlike potential of others.
– Anthony Burgess
Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone.
– Anthony Burgess
Life is a wretched gray Saturday, but it has to be lived through.
– Anthony Burgess
One of the delights known to age, and beyond the grasp of youth, is that of Not Going.
– Anthony Burgess
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
The possession of a book becomes a substitute for reading it.
– Anthony Burgess
To write is to become disinterested. There is a certain renunciation in art.
– Anthony Burgess
We all need money, but there are degrees of desperation.
– Anthony Burgess
Women thrive on novelty and are easy meat for the commerce of fashion. Men prefer old pipes and torn jackets.
– Anthony Burgess
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