por A Clockwork Orange is a dystopian novel by British writer Anthony Burgess, published in 1962 and made into a film by Stanley Kubrik in 1971. A very young Malcolm McDowell starred masterfully. Explore the limits of human evil, violence and moral choices.
The book is narrated by Alex, the protagonist, a juvenile delinquent who loves classical music, “ultraviolence” and sex, and is the leader of a gang he calls droogs, and with which he commits terrible crimes. The language is slang invented by Burgess himself, based on Russian words and Cockney slang, and adds an even more macabre note to the whole story. This jargon was baptized by the author as Nadsat.
We have made a selection of the best quotes of A Clockwork Orange, novel and film considered contemporary classics. A strong and controversial work that, however, won numerous awards, including four Oscars, including best film.
The best phrases of A Clockwork Orange
-Perhaps the man who chooses evil is in some way better than the one to whom good is imposed. – Prison chaplain.
-I see what is right and I approve, but what I do is wrong. -Dr. Brodsky.
-It’s funny how colors in the real world only seem true when you see them on a screen. -Alex.
-And where am I in all this? Am I an animal or a dog? (…) Am I nothing more than a clockwork orange? -Alex.
-Civilized my syphilitic yarblocos. -Alex.
-The world can’t be full of people like me -Alex.
-And there I was, that’s Alex, and my three droogs, that’s Pete, Georgie and Dim, and we were sitting in the Korova Dairy Bar, trying to decide with our scratchers what to do for the afternoon. -Alex.
-The Korova dairy bar sold milk added with velocet, synthemesco or dremcrom, which is what we are drinking. These sharpen your senses and get you ready for some old ultraviolence. -Alex.
«Do you have some new kind of torture for me, you brachno?» -Alex.
-The initiative comes to those who wait. -Alex.
-You are naughty, naughty, naughty, you dirty sumca. -Alex.
-He is young, brave and violent. Brodsky will take care of him tomorrow and you can sit and watch Brodksy. If everything goes well, you won’t have to worry about that. We will transform the young ruffian so much that he will be unrecognizable. -Minister of the interior.
‘You don’t need to take it any further, sir. He has shown me that all this ultraviolence and murder is wrong, wrong, terribly wrong. I’ve learned my lesson, sir. I have seen what I never could before. I am cured! Praise Bogo! I am cured! -Alex.
-They are a bunch of idiots, they sell their birthright for a bowl of lentils! For the thrill of stealing! To practice violence! To live easy! Well, I ask you, is it worth it when there is an undeniable truth, indisputable evidence that hell exists? – Prison chaplain.
-He doesn’t have decision-making capacity, does he? Selfishness, fear of physical pain led him to this grotesque act of self-humiliation. His insincerity was clear. He stopped being a criminal, but he also stopped being a creature capable of moral choices. – Prison chaplain.
-What natural right makes you believe that you can give orders and hit me when you want? Yarboclos I tell him, and I’m going to put the chain in his glazos when he screams. Oh! -Dim.
-Suddenly I realized that thinking is for the downtrodden and that the omnipotent have inspiration and what the Lord commands. -Alex.
-I see you have some books under your arm, brother. Really, it’s a rare pleasure these days to bump into someone who still reads, brother. -Alex.
-It is as inhuman to be totally good as totally evil. -Narrator (Introduction).
-We can destroy what we have written, but we cannot erase it. -Narrator (Introduction).
-Common people are willing to tolerate everything, yes. He is capable of selling freedom for a bit of peace of mind. -Mr. F. Alexander.
-Being good can be something horrible. – Prison chaplain.
-If in your heart, oh, brother, fear nests, I beg you to throw it away right now. -Alex.
-Being young is like being one of those malencas machines. -Alex.
-When I opened the door my heart went to the carpet. -Alex.
-I am everyone’s friend. Except from my enemies. -Alex.
-Kindness comes from within. Kindness is a choice. When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man. – Prison chaplain.
-How are you, bottle of cheap cooking oil? Come closer, and I’ll give you one in the yarblocos, if you have them, greasy eunuch. -Alex.
-A good and clean book, brother, is the most beautiful thing in the world. -Alex.
-The mere fact that the police have not caught you lately does not mean, as you know very well, that you have not been committing some misdeeds. -PR Deltoid.
-The important thing is the moral choice. Evil has to exist alongside goodness for that moral choice to take place. Life is sustained thanks to the bitter opposition of moral entities. -Narrator (Introduction).
-The human being is endowed with free will, and can choose between good and evil. If he can only act good or can only act bad, he will be nothing more than a clockwork orange. -Narrator (Introduction).
It is always difficult to set limits. The world is one, and life is one. The sweetest and most heavenly activity partakes in some measure of violence; for example, the act of love, or music. -Dr. Brodsky.
«You don’t have to protest, boy. You chose, and this is the result of your choice. What comes now is what you chose yourself. – Prison chaplain.
-Watch what you say, oh, Dim, if you really want to go on living. -Alex.
-What does God want? The good or that one chooses the path of good? – Prison chaplain.
-Senseless violence is a prerogative of youth; brimming with energy but lacking constructive talent. -Storyteller.
-The streets have to be kept clean, and in different ways. -Billyboy.
-The prison taught him the unctuous hands of hypocrisy, the obsequious and low smile… But those are subtleties. We are not interested in motives, higher ethics, we just want to eliminate crime. -Dr. Brodsky.
-The day was very different from the night. The night was mine and my droogs, and all the rest of the nadsats, and the bourgeois neighborhoods crouching between four walls, absorbing the groups of world programs. -Alex.
-I was able to clearly see myself running on very light and mysterious nogas, cutting all the litso to the crichanting world with my sharp britba. And the slow movement and the beautiful singing of the last movement were still missing. -Alex.
-Come on, kill me, you cowardly bastards. I don’t want to live anyway…not in a stinking world like this. -Indigent.
In a way, being young is like being an animal. No, it’s not so much being an animal, but one of those malenco dolls they sell on the streets, little tin chelovecs with a spring inside. -Alex.
-They were probably in the dirty slovos part, before starting a malenco piece of ultraviolence. -Alex.
What I do I do because I like it. -Alex.
-It had been a wonderful evening and what he needed now, to give it the perfect ending, was a little Ludwig Van. -Alex.
-Vide well, little brother. Watch well. -Alex.
-Isn’t your photo in the newspapers? Didn’t I see you on the video this morning? Aren’t you the poor victim of this horrible new technique? -Mr. F. Alexander.
– Du bi duo. I’m kind of tired. Better not say anything. Way of the bed is the best way. -Dim.
-Eggs, eggs… I want to… Crush them! -Alex.