Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism as I understand it.

Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.

War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it.

There is a minority of gifted, willfuf people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class.

You would not make the act of submission which is the price of sanity.

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.