I believe that the BBC, in spite of the stupidity of its foreign propaganda and the unbearable voices of its announcers, is very truthful. It is generally regarded here as more reliable than the press.

A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud.

But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him; the horror was that he might also be wrong.

But you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.

Fate seemed to be playing a series of extraordinarily unamusing jokes.

Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me--

As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.