It is not possible for any thinking person to live in such a society as our own without wanting to change it.

What was happening was only the working-out of a process that had started years ago. The first step had been a secret, involuntary thought, the second had been the opening of the diary. He had moved from thoughts to words, and now from words to actions. The last step was something that would happen in the Ministry of Love. He had accepted it. The end was contained in the beginning.

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

The citizen of Oceania is not allowed to know anything of the tenets of the other two philosophies, but he is taught to execrate them as barbarous outrages upon morality and common sense. Actually, the three philosophies are barely distinguishable.

Football, a game in which everyone gets hurt and every nation has its own style of play which seems unfair to foreigners.

The whole idea of revenge and punishment is a childish day-dream. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as revenge. Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also.

It's not so much staying alive, it's staying human that's important. What counts is that we don't betray each other.