A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.

The whole experience of being hit by a bullet is very interesting and I think worth describing in detail.

He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him.

We have become too civilized to grasp the obvious. For the truth is very simple. To survive you often have to fight, and to fight you have to dirty yourself. War is evil, and it is often the lesser evil. Those who take the sword perish by the sword, and those who don't take the sword perish by smelly diseases.

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.

Most revolutionaries are potential Tories, because they imagine that everything can be put right by altering the shape of society; once that change is effected, as it sometimes is, they see no need for any other.

All men are enemies. All animals are comrades