One defeats a fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself, but on the contrary by using one's intelligence.

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

... what is peculiar to our own age is the abandonment of the idea that history could be told truthfully.

He [Gandhi] was not one of those saints who are marked out by their phenomenal piety from childhood onwards, nor one of the other kind who forsake the world after sensational debaucheries.

Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

Good writing is like a windowpane.

On each landing, opposite the lift shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.