John

“There is, in fact, not much point in writing a novel unless you can show the possibility of moral transformation, or an increase in wisdom, operating in your chief character or characters. Even trashy bestsellers show people changing. When a fictional work fails to show change, when it merely indicates that human character is set, stony, unregenerable, then you are out of field of the novel and into that of the fable or the allegory.

- from the introduction of the 1986 Norton edition”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“The icon receded, and the word “PASSWORD” came up front, bold and center, with a blinking space to fill. Jayce reached again for his ear, but caught himself. He moved his fingers, entering “p.a.s.s.w.o.r.d.” into the space. “ACCESS DENIED,” it read. Hmmm.”
― Josh Barkey, Jayce

“I first became fascinated with the Sears catalogue because all the people in its pages were perfect. Nearly everybody I knew had something missing, a finger cut off, a toe split, an ear half-chewed away, an eye clouded with blindness from a glancing fence staple. And if they didn't have something missing, they were carrying scars from barbed wire, or knives, or fishhooks. But the people in the catalogue had no such hurts. They were not only whole, had all their arms and legs and eyes on their unscarred bodies, but they were also beautiful.”
― Harry Crews, A Childhood: The Biography of a Place

“I think that anti-Jewish prejudice is an unfailing sign of a sick and disordered person ... It's a horrible, conspiratorial, pseudo-intellectual, mean spirited, eventually lethal piece of bigotry.”
― Christopher Hitchens