Anthony Burgess Quotes

I believe life is a parenthesis between two nothings. I'm an atheist. I believe in a personal God, which is conscience, and that's what we must be accountable to every day.

At this day . . . the earth sustains on her bosom many monster minds, minds which are not afraid to employ the seed of Deity deposited in human nature as a means of suppressing the name of God. Can anything be more detestable than this madness in man, who, finding God a hundred times both in his body and his soul, makes his excellence in this respect a pretext for denying that there is a God? He will not say that chance has made him different from the brutes; . . . but, substituting Nature as the architect of the universe, he suppresses the name of God.

After one has abandoned a belief in God, poetry is that essence which takes its place as life's redemption.

"The Holy Ghost," Luther instructs us, "is not a skeptic." Not everyone can be, and that is really too bad.

To be without God is to be a snake / who wants to swallow an elephant.

Don't look for God where He is needed most; if you didn't bring Him there, He isn't there.

Your absence is the presence of godliness.

Every breath we draw is a gift of God's love; every moment of existence is a grace.

It is so easy to be hopeful in the daytime when you can see the things you wish on. But it was night, it stayed night. Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world in his hands . . . They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against cruel walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.

Why should I live? Why should I do anything? Is there in life any purpose which the inevitable death that awaits me does not undo and destroy?

If there be a God and one has never sought him, it will be small consolation to remember that one could not get proof of his existence.

I choose to believe in God, but I have serious doubts.

There is a reason they call God a presence - because God is right here, right now. In the present is the only place to find Him, and now is the only time.

If there is a God, why did he make me an atheist?

I don't understand what the nature of God is. But I do have the feeling that I'm at some feet, and lucky to be there.

What if the worst is true? What if there's no God, and you only go around once, and that's it? Don't you want to be a part of the experience? You know, what the hell? It's not all a drag, and I'm thinking to myself: Geez! I should stop ruining my life searching for answers I'm never gonna get and just enjoy it while it lasts. And, you know, after-who knows? Maybe there is something, nobody really knows. I know that maybe is a very slim reed to hang your whole life on, but that's the best we have.

I think God is something that people use to avoid reality. I think faith allows people to reject what is right in front of our eyes, which is that thing, this life, this existence, this consciousness, or whatever word you want to use for it, is all we have, and all we'll ever have. I think people have faith because they want and need to believe in something, whatever that something is, because life can be hard and depressing and brutal if you don't.

Dear young people, the happiness you are seeking, the happiness you have a right to enjoy has a name and a face: it is Jesus of Nazareth, hidden in the Eucharist. Only he gives the fullness of life to humanity! With Mary, say your own "yes" to God, for he wishes to give himself to you.

On the bookshelf of life, God is a useful work of reference, always at hand but seldom consulted.

God is the most important thing in our lives. I suppose that's true of everybody's lives, whether or not they want to believe it.

Take God from nature, nothing great is left.

The essence of religious feeling does not come under any sort of reasoning or atheism, and has nothing to do with any crimes or misdemeanors. There is something else here, and there will always be something else - something that the atheists will for ever slur over; they will always be talking of something else.

It is hard to see how a great man can be an atheist. . . . We need to feel that behind us is intelligence and love.

God has two thrones, on in the highest heavens, the other in the lowliest heart.

Sometimes I try my hand at turning out small profundities and uncertain short stories, but I always end up with just one single word: God.