When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, "I am going to produce a work of art." I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.

Money, money, all is money! Could you write even a penny novelette without money to put heart in you?

It [England] is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

One defeats the fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself, but on the contrary by using one's intelligence.

Freedom is the right to tell people what they don't want to hear.

The high sentiments always win in the end, the leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.

The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being but to remind him that he is already degraded.

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.