Anthony Burgess Quotes

What is already woven cannot be undone. It will not make the trees grow again for you to bring the building down on our heads.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

You can say the opposite of something you've said but you can't do the opposite of something you've done.

There's some bells you can't unring.

This is one doodle that can't be un-did, Homeskillet.

There's nothing half so real in life as the things you've done... inexorably, unalterably done.

The moving finger writes, and having written moves on. Nor all thy piety nor all thy wit, can cancel half a line of it.

You can't take back an act you were able to think.

Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it's hard to get it back in.

The past can never be erased. It is always going to be there.

It is as easy to draw back a stone thrown with force from the hand, as to recall a word once spoken.

Know that a word suddenly shot from the tongue is like an arrow shot from the bow. Son, that arrow won't turn back on its way; you must damn the torrent at its source.

The words can not return.

IT happened. There is no avoiding it, no forgetting. No running away, or flying, or burying, or hiding.

Things that are easily done are often much harder to undo. Sometimes, impossible.

Things are so easy to do, so hard to undo.

Ever step you take is forever. You cant make it go away. None of it. You understand what I'm sayin?

And whatever I do will become forever what I've done.

You cant put the toothpaste back in the tube.

It is difficult to undo our own damage, and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave. It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind. The very holy mountains are keeping mum. We doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it; we are lighting matches in vain under every green tree.

I never wish death on nobody, cause there ain't coming back from that.

You do what you do and you pay for your sins and there's no such thing as what might have been.

Chastity, once lost, cannot be recalled; it goes only once.

The undoing is almost always more difficult than the doing.