The essential intention is the real sin. A man who cannot choose ceases to be a man. - Anthony Burgess

When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.

What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?

The Antipods…were always ready to burst.

A white woman tipsy at the club, discoursing sexual needs unsatisfied by an overworked and debilitated husband, was a great topic of scandal in the bazaar. It was a man’s world, and a realistic planter or government officer should have been content with beery sodality and the odd session with a geisha or perempuan jahat. But these men had been to decent schools and were romantic. It was the same in Burma, as Orwell reminds us. The French suffered less.