Being young's a sort of sickness, Measles, mumps or chicken pox. Gather all your toys together, Lock them in a wooden box. That means tolchocks, cras… - Anthony Burgess

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Being young's a sort of sickness,
Measles, mumps or chicken pox.
Gather all your toys together,
Lock them in a wooden box.
That means tolchocks, crasting and dratsing,
All of the things that suit a boy.
When you build instead of busting,
You can start your Ode to Joy.
Do not be a clockwork orange,
Freedom has a lovely voice.
Here is good and there is badness,
Look on both, then take your choice.
Sweet in juice and hue and aroma,
Let's not be changed to fruit machines.
Choice is free but seldom easy-
That's what human freedom means.

English
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About Anthony Burgess

Anthony Burgess (25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993) was an English writer and composer whose novels include the Malayan trilogy, A Clockwork Orange, the Enderby cycle, Nothing Like The Sun, Earthly Powers and The Kingdom Of The Wicked. He also produced critical works on Joyce, Lawrence, Hemingway and Shakespeare, and studies of language and of pornography.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Birth Name: John Anthony Burgess Wilson
Alternative Names: John Burgess Wilson Joseph Kell
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Additional quotes by Anthony Burgess

...the eyes, black, were all East - houris, harems, beds scented with Biblical spices; nose and lips were pan-Mediterranean. Her body...was that of the Shulamite and Italian film stars. The décolletage, with its promise of round, brown, infinitely smooth, vertiginous sensual treasure, was a torment to the blood....Many had promised marriage, but all had gone home, the promise unfulfilled....quite considerable capacity for all kinds of sensuous pleasure.

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'But what happens when you die?' 'You’re finished with,' Enderby said promptly. 'Done for. And even if you weren’t – well, you die then, gasp your last, then you’re sort of wandering, free of body. You wander around and then you come in contact with a sort of big thing. What is this big thing? God, if you like.'

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