Chaplain quotes from A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Chaplain

The Governor has grave doubts about it [aversion therapy] 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.

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

And the very next day, your Friend and Humble Narrator was a free man.

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, 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.