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.

Winston could not definitely remember a time when his country had not been at war...war had literally been continuous, though strictly speaking it had not always been the same war. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil.

But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him; the horror was that he might also be wrong.

News is something somebody doesn't want printed; all else is advertising.

Clover was a stout motherly mare approaching middle life, who had never quite got her figure back after her fourth foal.

Surely, comrades, you don't want Jones back?

Sometimes they threaten you with something - something you can't stand up to, can't even think about. And then you say, Don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to So-and-so. And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself, and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You WANT it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care is yourself.