The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

Sheer egoism... Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen - in short, with the whole top crust of humanity.

But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

In moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy but always against one's own body.

Only old Benjamin professed to remember every detail of his long life and to know that things never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse--hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life.

During the first two months of the war it was the Anarchists more than anyone else who had saved the situation, and much later than this the Anarchist militia, in spite of their indiscipline, were notoriously the best fighters among the purely Spanish forces.