George Orwell (1903 – 1950) was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His birth name was Eric Arthur Blair. The Times, in 2008, ranked Orwell second on the list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945”.
“Good prose should be transparent, like a window pane.”
“Good novels are written by people who are not frightened.”
“If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.”
“Never use the passive where you can use the active.”
“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 he lives in…but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape. It is his job, no doubt, to discipline his temperament and avoid getting stuck at some immature stage, in some perverse mood; but if he escapes from his early influences altogether, he will have killed his impulse to write.” (from his book, Why I Write)
“Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
“Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.”
