England will still be England, an everlasting animal, stretching into the future and the past and like all living things having the power to change out of all recognition and yet remain the same.

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

The whole experience of being hit by a bullet is very interesting and I think worth describing in detail.

When I see a policeman with a club beating a man on the ground, I don't have to ask whose side I'm on.

Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

The machine has got to be accepted, but it is probably better to accept it rather as one accepts a drug - that is, grudgingly and suspiciously. Like a drug, the machine is useful, dangerous, and habit-forming. The oftener one surrenders to it the tighter its grip becomes.

And if our book consumption remains as low as it has been, at least let us admit that it is because reading is a less exciting pastime than going to the dogs, the pictures or the pub, and not because books, whether bought or borrowed, are too expensive.