To be left alone is the most precious thing one can ask of the modern world.

The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities.

Come with uncle and hear all proper. Hear angel trumpets and devil trombones...you are invited!

The 21st chapter gives the novel the quality of genuine fiction, an art founded on the principle that human beings change. ----- "A Clockwork Orange Resucked" intro to first full American version 1986

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

If you expect the worst from a person, you can't ever be disappointed... The pessimist takes a sort of gloomy pleasure in observing the depths to which human behaviour can sink. The more sin he sees, the more his belief in Original Sin is confirmed. Everyone likes to have his deepest convictions confirmed; that is one of the most abiding of human satisfaction.

If you want to be considered a poet, you will have to show mastery of the petrarchan sonnet form or the sestina. Your musical efforts must begin with well-formed fugues. There is no substitute for craft... Art begins with craft, and there is no art until craft has been mastered.