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All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a ...more

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Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot ch...more

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To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words. Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never l...more

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Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not ...more

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From ... the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. ... I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousnes...more

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Good novel are written by people who are not frightened.

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Don't you enjoy being alive? Don't you like feeling: This is me, this is my hand, this is my leg, I'm real, I'm solid, I'm alive! Don't you like this?

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The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims one turns as if it were instinctivel...more

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...every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures.

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Good prose should be transparent, like a window pane.

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I do not wish to comment on the work; if it does not speak for itself, it is a failure.

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I do not think one can assess a writer’s motives without knowing something of his early development. His subject matter will be determined by the age ...more

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Good writing is like a windowpane.

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If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.

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Good novels are not written by orthodoxy-sniffers, nor by people who are conscience-stricken about their own orthodoxy. Good novels are written by peo...more