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

Preventive war is a crime not easily committed by a country that retains any traces of democracy.

The clock struck half past two. In the little office at the back of Mr. McKechnie's bookshop, Gordon--Gordon Comstock, last member of the Comstock family, aged twenty-nine and rather moth-eaten already--lounged across the table, pushing a fourpenny packet of Player's Weights open and shut with his thumb.

The most stirring battle-poem in English is about a brigade of cavalry which charged in the wrong direction.

The machine has got to be accepted, but it is probably better to accept it rather as one accepts a drug - that is, grudgingly and suspiciously. Like a drug, the machine is useful, dangerous, and habit-forming. The oftener one surrenders to it the tighter its grip becomes.

In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Money, money, all is money! Could you write even a penny novelette without money to put heart in you?