A man filled with meat turns his back on the dry bones of political doctrine. Fanatical devotion to the ruling party comes more readily from the materially deprived At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.

No affectation of peculiarity can conceal a commonplace mind.

He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.

He found that it was easy to make a heroic gesture, but hard to abide by its results.

Clearly much that seemed valid seemed so only because he had been taught it from earliest youth.

You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action. In France you get freedom of action: you can do what you like and nobody bothers, but you must think like everybody else. In Germany you must do what everybody else does, but you may think as you choose. They're both very good things. I personally prefer freedom of thought. But in England you get neither: you're ground down by convention. You can't think as you like and you can't act as you like. That's because it's a democratic nation. I expect America's worse.

I'd sooner be smashed into a mangled pulp by a bus when we cross the street than look forward to a life like yours.