Burgess' Burgeoning Genial Genius

" 'Life,' so went Quedgeley on, 'is in a sense all lies. We watch ourselves act every day. Philip drunk and Philip sober. One is inside the other watching the other. And so I am John Quedgeley and Jack Quedgeley and Jockey Quedgeley and Master Quedgeley, Justice of Peace, and all. It is all acting.' And WS saw that this was true, revolving it in the murk of the bottom of his cider-tankard. Had he not himself watched WS and WS watched Will? Where was truth, where did a man's true nature lie? There was, as it were, an essence and there was also an existence. It was, this essence, at the bottom of a well, of a Will."

~Anthony Burgess. Nothing Like the Sun. p.51