Anthony Burgess - Language Quotes

7 Sourced Quotes

View all Anthony Burgess Quotes

The British... used to regard foreigners as either a comic turn or a sexual menace. To learn a European language... was, at best, to seek to acquire a sort of girls'-finishing-school ornament, at worst, to capitulate feebly to the enemy.

Anthony Burgess

Literature, by the way, may be defined as the aesthetic exploitation of language.

Anthony Burgess

An Egyptian priest... plays up the mystery of language to enhance his own power.

Anthony Burgess

Maugham was a mere visitor and did not have to take any language examinations; a civil servant like myself was forced to reach degree level in Malay.

Anthony Burgess

Slang... the home-made language of the ruled, not the rulers, the acted upon, the used, the used up. It is demotic poetry emerging in flashes of ironic insight.

Anthony Burgess

Journalism may not dare too much. It can be gently humorous and ironic, very lightly touched by idiosyncrasy, but it must not repel readers by digging too deeply. This is especially true of its approach to language: the conventions are not questioned. The questioning of linguistic conventions is one of the main duties of what we call literature.

Anthony Burgess

Languages never stand still. Modern spelling crystallises lost pronunciations: the visual never quite catches up with the aural.

Anthony Burgess