“Writers are not, by nature, respectable: their function is to be subversive.”
Non-Fiction, Homage to QWERT YUIOP: Selected Journalism 1978-1985 (1986)
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Anthony Burgess 297
English writer 1917–1993Related quotes

“The role and function of backbench politicians deserves to be treated with respect.”
Principles and Priorities : Programme for Government (September 5, 2007)

Source: Introduction to Systems Philosophy (1972), p. 67.

“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”
Though often attributed to Galbraith, as early as 1988 in U.S. News & World Report, the earliest publications of this statement, in The Bulletin (1984) and Reader's Digest (1985) attributes it to Ezra Solomon.
Misattributed

Letter to the Bishop of Gloucester William Warburton (October 1762), quoted in W. S. Taylor and J. H. Pringle (eds.), Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham: Vol. II (London: John Murray, 1838), p. 188
1760s
Source: Pictures from an Institution (1954) [novel], Chapter 1, p. 22

The Ecological Vision (1993)
1990s and later
"A configurational perspective on key account management", 2002

Thales, 14.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 1: The Seven Sages