Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

I did try very hard to tell the whole truth without violating my literary instincts.

Modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy.

When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.

Every war, when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

I think I exist,' he said wearily. 'I am conscious of my own identity. I was born, and I shall die. I have arms and legs. I occupy a particular point in space. No other solid object can occupy the same point simultaneously.

The words kept coming back to him, statement of a mystical truth and a palpable absurdity.