"Everyone has his own reality in which, if one is not too cautious, timid or frightened, one swims. This is the only reality there is."

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It seems priggish or pollyannaish to deny that my intention in writing the work was to titillate the nastier propensities of my readers. My own healthy inheritance of original sin comes out in the book and I enjoyed raping and ripping by proxy. It is the novelist’s innate cowardice that makes him depute to imaginary personalities the sins that he is too cautious to commit for himself.

— Anthony Burgess