Alastair Morgan talks to Anthony Burgess (1983)

My recollection is that the foreword to The End of the World News said essentially that it wasn't worth writing well any more. But I read that thirty-five years ago or so, and may have it wrong.

Burgess's autobiographies, Little Wilson and Big God and You've Had Your Time are worth reading and quickly read. The former says a good deal about languages, and his experience teaching English to those whose first language might have been Malay, Chinese, or an Indian language; also the revolution in his thinking caused by learning Malay, where semantics trumped syntax.

And I do like "I always quote the word violence, because the word violence is the most unviolent word in the world, because it contains violin, viol, violets." With a bit of searching on YouTube you should be able to find a Rocky and Bullwinkle sketch on just that notion.