George Orwells 1984 frequently tops surveys of our greatest books: its not a celebration of poetic language. Its decidedly anti-literary, a masterpiece of personal and political narrative sequence. And its subject matter is crucial, because what 1984 shows is that language can be a dirty trick.

Rationally speaking, blaming one's behavior on alcohol or drugs is like blaming the ladder by which you descended into a pit, or the staircase that took you down to a cellar, for what you found there.

Repression in the human psyche is tightly bundled. When it has been pulled out of the sprung package so often it is perhaps difficult to push it back in the box.

The blood in my veins is frozen but it sings of love.

I've been playing 'Doom' for some years.

If I couldn't get published tomorrow I'd still be writing. It's something to do with feeling so overwhelmed by this experience of life that you have to tell someone about it, and in a way that reorders the experience to make it manageable.

Plutocracy.' It has a perfect nuance: chilly, inaccessible, icy-rich.