“All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news.”

“England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare's much-quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with ...”

“Here one comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constituitionalism and legality, the belief in 'the law' as something above the state and above the individual, something which i...”

“In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues....”

“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 struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. O...”

“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 get my own back for my failure in everyday life.”

“I love and care for everyone because I know the pain of being unloved and uncared.”

“I think... if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.”

“Do only work that matters, and you will end up pleasing those who are important enough to care about it.”

“Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of goo...”

“Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of goo...”