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

The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, instinctive. Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak.

A not-too-distant explosion shakes the house, the windows rattle in their sockets, and in the next room the class of 1964 wakes up and lets out a yell or two. Each time this happens I find myself thinking, "Is it possible that human beings can continue with this lunacy very much longer?" You know the answer, of course.

All Spaniards, we discovered, knew two English expressions. One was ‘OK, baby,' the other was a word used by the Barcelona whores in their dealings with English sailors, and I am afraid the compositors would not print it.

Was life better before the Revolution than it is now?

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end.

The best brothel-scenes in literature have been written, without exception, by pious believers or pious unbelievers.