You've sinned, I suppose, but your punishment has been out of all proportion. They have turned you into something other than a human being. You have … - Anthony Burgess

…I prefer to think of [young women] less as human beings than as pimply parcels of televisual reflexes.

Outside, the main doors behind him, he was hit full in the chest by autumn. The doggy wind leapt about him and nipped; leaves skirred along the pavement, the scrape of the ferrules of sticks; melancholy, that tetrasyllable, sat on a plinth in the middle of the square. English autumn, and the whistling tiny souls of the dead round the war memorial.

‘What you could do with is a nice strong cup of tea, sir. I’ll tell the kuki to make you one.’ ‘Does it really do any good, Nabby? (That was better.) ‘I’ve tried every damn thing.’....