Quotes

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Policeman: [to Deltoid] If you'd care to give him a bash in the chops, sir, don't mind us. We'll hold him down. He must be a great disappointment to you, sir. Chief Guard: [to Alex] You are now 655321, and it is your duty to memorise that number. Chaplain: What's it going to be then, eh? Is it going to be in and out of institutions like this, though more in than out for most of you? Or are you going to attend to the Divine Word and realise the punishments that await unrepentant sinners in the next world as well as this? A lot of idiots you are, selling your birthright for a saucer of cold porridge, the thrill of theft, of violence, the urge to live easy. Well, I ask you, what is it worth, when we have undeniable proof, yes, incontrovertible evidence that Hell exists? I know, I know, my friends. I have been informed in visions that there is a place darker than any prison, hotter than any flame of human fire, where souls of unrepentant criminal sinners like yourselves—Don't you laugh, da

Dialogue

Alex: [voiceover] One thing I could never stand was to see a filthy, dirty old drunkie, howling away at the filthy songs of his fathers and going blerp, blerp in between, as it might be a filthy old orchestra in his stinking rotten guts. I could never stand to see anyone like that, whatever his age might be, but more especially when he was real old like this one was. Tramp: Can you spare some cutter, me brothers? Tramp: Go on, do me in, you bastard cowards. I don't want to live anyway...not in a stinking world like this. Alex: Oh...and what's so stinking about it? Tramp: It's a stinking world because there's no law and order any more. It's a stinking world because it lets the young get onto the old, like you done. Oh...it's no world for an old man any longer. What sort of a world is it at all? Men on the moon, and men spinning around the earth, and there's not no attention paid to earthly law and order no more.

Dialogue

Alex: [narrating] There were some sophistos from the TV studios around the corner, laughing and govoreeting. The devotchka was smecking away and not caring about the wicked world one bit. Then the disc on the stereo twanged off and out. And in the short silence before the next one came on, she suddenly came with a burst of singing. [the woman starts singing; Alex watches with a smile creeping across his face] And it was like, for a moment, O my brothers, some great bird had flown into the milkbar. And I felt all the malenky little hairs on my plott standing endwise, and the shivers crawling up like slow, malenky lizards, and then down again. Because I knew what she sang. It was a bit from the Glorious Ninth by Ludwig Van. Dim: What did you do that for? Alex: For being a bastard with no manners, and not a dook of an idea how to comport yourself public-wise, O my brother! [smiles at the woman and raises his glass to her] Dim: I don't like you should do what you done. And I'm not your bro

Dialogue

Dad: I wonder, where exactly is it he goes to work of evenings? Mum: Well, like he says, it's mostly odd things he does, helping like, here and there as it might be.

Dialogue

Alex: Hi-hi-hi, Mr. Deltoid! Funny surprise, seeing you here. Deltoid: Ah, Alex, boy! Awake at last, yes? I met your mother on the way to work, yes? [holds up key] She gave me the key. [tosses it onto bedside table] She said something about a pain somewhere, hence not at school, yes? Alex: A rather intolerable pain in the head, brother, sir. I think it should be cleared by this after-lunch. Deltoid: Or certainly by this evening, yes. The evening's the great time, isn't it, Alex, boy? Hmmm? Alex: Cup of the old chai, sir? Deltoid: No time, no time, yes. [pats bed] Sit, sit, sit! Alex: To what do I owe this extreme pleasure, sir? [sits by Deltoid] Anything wrong, sir? Deltoid: Wrong? [tousles and then pulls Alex's hair] Why should you think of anything being wrong? Have you been doing something you shouldn't, yes? Alex: Just a manner of speech, sir. Deltoid: Yes, well, it's just a manner of speech from your post-corrective advisor to you that you watch out, little Alex, because next time

Dialogue

Alex: Let's get things nice and sparkling clear. This sarcasm, if I may call it such, does not become you, O my little brothers. As I am your droog and leader, I'm entitled to know what goes on, eh? Now then, Dim, what does that great big horsy gape of a grin portend? Georgie: All right, no more picking on Dim, brother. That's part of the new way. Alex: New way? What's this about a new way? There's been some very large talk behind my sleeping back, and no error. Georgie: Well, if you must have it, have it then. We go around, shop crasting and the like, coming out with a pitiful rookerful of money each. Dim: Pitiful rookerful. Georgie: And there's Will the English, in the Muscleman coffee mesto, saying he can fence anything that any malchick tries to crast. The shiny stuff, the ice, the big, big, big money's available, is what Will the English says. Dim: Big, big money. Alex: And what will you do with the big, big, big money? Have you not everything you need? If you need a motor car, yo

Dialogue

Alex: It's no good sitting there in hope, my little brothers. I won't say a single solitary slovo unless I have my lawyer here. I know the law, you bastards. Inspector: Righty-right, Tom. We'll have to show our little friend Alex, here, that we know the law, too. But that knowing the law isn't everything.

Dialogue

Deltoid: Dear, dear, this boy does look a mess, doesn't he? Just look at the state of him. Policeman 1: Love's young nightmare, like. Inspector: Violence makes violence. He resisted his lawful arrestors. Deltoid: Hmm, this is the end of the line for me. The end of the line, yes! Alex: It wasn't me, brother, sir. Speak up for me, sir, for I'm not so bad. I was led on by the treachery of others, sir. Policeman 1: Sings the roof off lovely, he does that. [laughs] Alex: And what of my stinking traitorous droogs? Get them before they get away! It was all their idea, brothers! They forced me to do it! I'm innocent! Deltoid: [laughs mockingly] You are now a murderer, little Alex. A murderer! Alex: Not true, sir. It was only a slight tolchock. She were breathing, I swear it! Deltoid: I've just come from the hospital. Your victim has died! Alex: You try to frighten me. Admit so, sir. This is some new form of torture. Say it, brother, sir! Deltoid: It'll be your own torture. I hope to God it'll

Dialogue

Barnes: Are you able to see the white line painted on the floor directly behind you, 655321? Alex: Yes, sir. Barnes: Then your toes belong ON THE OTHER SIDE OF IT!

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Chaplain: The Governor has grave doubts about it, and I have heard that there are very serious dangers involved. Alex: I don't care about the dangers, Father. I just want to be good. I want for the rest of my life to be one act of goodness. Chaplain: The question is whether or not this technique really makes a man good. Goodness comes from within. Goodness is chosen. When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man. Alex: I don't understand about the whys and wherefores, Father. I only know I want to be good. Chaplain: Be patient, my son. Put your trust in the Lord.

Dialogue

Minister: Cram criminals together, and what do you get? Concentrated criminality. Crime in the midst of punishment. Governor: I agree, sir. What we need are larger prisons, more money. Minister: [chuckles] Not a chance, my dear fellow. The Government can't be concerned any longer with outmoded penological theories. Soon we may be needing all our prison space for political offenders. Common criminals like these are best dealt with on a purely curative basis. Kill the criminal reflex, that's all. Full implementation in a year's time. Punishment means nothing to them, you can see that. They enjoy their so-called punishment. Alex: You're absolutely right, sir! Chief Guard Barnes: Shut your bleedin' hole! Minister: Who said that? Alex: I did, sir. Minister: What crime did you commit? Alex: The accidental killing of a person, sir. Chief Guard Barnes: He brutally murdered a woman, in furtherance of theft! Fourteen years, sir! Minister: Excellent. He's enterprising, aggressive, outgoing, young

Dialogue

Governor: I don't suppose you know who that was this morning, do you? That was no less a personage than the Minister of the Interior. The new Minister of the Interior, and what they call a very new broom. Well, these new ridiculous ideas have come at last, and orders are orders. Though I may say to you in confidence that I do not approve. An eye for an eye, I say. If someone hits you, you hit back, do you not? Why then, should the State--very severely hit by you brutal hooligans--not hit back also? The new view is to say "no". The new view is that we turn the bad into good. All of which seems to me to be grossly unjust, eh? Alex: Sir-- Chief Guard Barnes: [interrupting] SHUT YOUR FILTHY HOLE, YOU SCUM! Governor: You are to be reformed. Tomorrow, you will go to this man Brodsky. You will be leaving here. You will be transferred to the Ludovico Medical Facility. It is believed that you will be able to leave state custody in a little over a fortnight. I suppose that prospect pleases you?

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Alex: [narrating while being forced to watch a World War II movie with Nazis] It was the next day, brothers. And I had truly done my best, morning and afternoon, to play it their way and sit like a horrorshow cooperative malchik in the chair of torture, while they flashed nasty bits of ultraviolence on the screen. Though not on the soundtrack, my brothers -- the only sound being music. Then I noticed, in all my pain and sickness, what music it was that, like, cracked and boomed. It was Ludwig Van -- 9th symphony, 4th movement. Alex: [screaming] STOP IT! STOP IT, PLEASE! I BEG YOU! IT'S A SIN! IT'S A SIN! IT'S A SIN! IT'S A SIN! IT'S A SIN! IT'S A SIN! Dr. Brodsky: Sin? What's all this about sin? Alex: THAT! Using Ludwig van like that! He did no harm to anyone! Beethoven just wrote music! Dr. Branom: Are you referring to the background score? Alex: YES! Dr. Branom: You've heard Beethoven before? Alex: YES! Dr. Brodsky: So you're keen on music? Alex: [Emphatically] YES! Dr. Brodsky: Can'

Dialogue

Chaplain: Choice! The boy has no real choice, has he?! Self-interest, the fear of physical pain drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. Its insincerity was clearly to be seen. He ceases to be a wrong-doer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice. Minister: Padre, these are subtleties! We are not concerned with motives, with the higher ethics. We are concerned only with cutting down crime! And with relieving the ghastly congestion in our prisons. He will be your true Christian, ready to turn the other cheek, ready to be crucified rather than crucify. Sick to the very heart at the thought even of killing a fly. Reclamation, joy before the angels of God. The point is that it works! Alex: [voice-over] And the very next day, your Friend and Humble Narrator was a free man.

Dialogue

Dad: Are you all right, lad? Mum: Dad...it's the treatment. Joe: Well, it's disgusting. I mean, it's enough to put you off your food. Mum: Oh leave him be, Joe, it's the treatment.

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First Policeman: All right, all right, stop it now! Go on! Stop breaking the State's peace, you naughty boys! Second Policeman: Back away! Away with you! [to Alex] What's your trouble, sir? Alex: [looking up] Oh, no! Second Policeman (Dim): Well! Well, well, well! Well, well, well, well! If it isn't little Alex! Long time, no viddy, droog! How goes? Alex: It's impossible! I don't believe it! First Policeman (Georgie): Evidence of the old glazzies! Nothing up our sleeves. No magic, little Alex. A job for two who are now of job age. The police!

Dialogue

Dim: Go on, Alex! Come for walkies! Alex: Come, come, come, my little droogies. I just don't get this at all. The old days are dead and gone. For what I did in the past, I've been punished. Dim: Punished! Alex: I've been cured! Dim: Cured, yeah! That was read out to us. The Inspector read it all out to us. He said it was a very good way. Alex: But what is all this? It was them that went for me, brothers. Well, you're not on their side, and can't be. Well, you can't be, Dim. It was someone we fillied with back in the old days, trying to get his own little bit of revenge after all this time. Remember, Dim? Dim: Long time is right. I don't remember them days too horrorshow. And don't call me Dim no more either! Officer, call me! Georgie: Enough is remembered, though, little Alex. Dim: This is to make sure you stay cured! Georgie: He's had enough, droogie. Dim: A bit more! He's still kicking! Dim: Cured, are you? Be viddying you some more sometime, droogie!

Dialogue

Alex: Your wife, sir, is she away? Mr. Alexander: NO, SHE'S DEAD! Alex: I'm sorry to hear about that, sir. Mr. Alexander: [raving] She was very badly raped, you see. We were assaulted by a gang of vicious young hoodlums in this house, in this very room you are sitting in now. I was left a helpless cripple, but for her, the agony was too great. The doctors said it was pneumonia because it happened some months later during a flu epidemic. The doctors told me it was pneumonia but I knew what it was. A victim of the modern age - poor, poor girl. [calmer] And now, you, another victim of the modern age, but you can be helped.

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Conspirator: Do you still feel suicidal? Alex: Well, put it this way, I feel very low in myself. I can't see much in the future, and I feel that any second something terrible is going to happen to me. [slumps into spaghetti]

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Minister: [as he feeds Alex morsels of food] We tried to help you. We followed recommendations which were made to us that turned out to be wrong. An inquiry will place the responsibility where it belongs. We want you to regard us as friends. We put you right. You are getting the best of treatment. We never wished you harm, but there are some who did, and do, and I think you know who those are. There are certain people who wanted to use you for political ends. They would have been glad to have you dead, for they thought they could then blame it all on the Government. There is also a certain man, a writer of subversive literature, who has been howling for your blood. He has been mad with desire to stick a knife into you but you are safe from him now. We put him away. He found out that you had done wrong to him. At least he believed you had done wrong. He formed this idea in his head that you had been responsible for the death of someone near and dear to him. He was a menace. We put him a

Dialogue

Cat Lady: Oh shit. Who's there? Alex: Excuse me, missus, can you please help? There's been a terrible accident. Can I please use your telephone for an ambulance? Cat Lady: I'm frightfully sorry. There is a telephone in the Public House about a mile down the road. I suggest you use that. Alex: But, missus, this is an emergency. It's a matter of life and death. Me friend's lying in the middle of the road bleeding to death. Cat Lady: I'm very sorry but I never open the door to strangers after dark. Alex: Very well, madam. I suppose you can't be blamed for being suspicious with so many scoundrels and rogues of the night about. Dim, bend down. I'm gonna get in that window and open the front door. Cat Lady: Hello, Radlett Police Station. Good evening. It's Miss Weathers at Woodmere Health Farm... hello, look, I'm frightfully sorry to bother you but something rather odd has just happened... Well, it's probably nothing at all, but you never know... Well, a young man ring the bell asking to use