A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Godfrey Quigley: Prison Chaplain

Photos 

Quotes 

• Prison Chaplain : Goodness is something to be chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.

• Prison Chaplain : Choice! The boy has not a real choice, has he? Self-interest, the fear of physical pain drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. The insincerity was clear to be seen. He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice.

  Minister : Padre, there 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 heart at the thought of killing a fly. Reclamation! Joy before the angels of God! The point is that it works.

• Prison Chaplain : What's it going to be, eh? Is it going to be in and out of institutions like this? Well, more in and out for most of ya! 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 own 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 truth - 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...!

  [an inmate belches, prompting the rest to laugh] 

  Prison Chaplain : Don't you laugh, damn you! Don't you laugh! I say like yourselves scream in endless and unendurable agony! Their skin rotting and peeling! A fireball spinning in their screaming guts! I know! Oh yes, I know!

  [Another inmate makes a raspberry noise, prompting them to laugh again] 

• Prison Chaplain : ls there something troubling you, my son? Don't be shy to speak up. Remember, I know of the urges that can trouble young men deprived of the society of women.

• 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.

  Prison 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. I only know I want to be good.