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Political writing in our time consists almost entirely of prefabricated phrases bolted together like the pieces of a child's Meccano set. It is the un...more

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He drove his mind into the abyss where poetry is written.

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Gordon eyed them with inert hatred. At this moment he hated all books, and novels most of all. Horrible to think of all that soggy, half-baked trash m...more

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A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will ...more

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Modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clea...more

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A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up the details...

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

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Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact ...more

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I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts, and I felt that this created a sort of private world in which I could ...more

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It is bound to be a failure, every book is a failure, but I do know with some clarity what kind of book I want to write.

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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