Happy birthday, George Orwell! Here are some quotes from the writer.
“The imagination, like certain wild animals, will not breed in captivity.”
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
“The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.”
“Perhaps a man really dies when his brain stops, when he loses the power to take in a new idea.”
“A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves, and traitors are not victims, but accomplices.”
“War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.”
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
John Madera is the author of Nervosities (Anti-Oedipus Press, 2024). His other fiction is published in Conjunctions, Salt Hill, The &Now Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing, and many other journals. His nonfiction is published in American Book Review, Bookforum, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Rain Taxi: Review of Books, The Believer, The Brooklyn Rail, and many other venues. Recipient of an M.F.A. in Literary Arts from Brown University, New York State Council on the Arts awardee John Madera lives in New York City, Rhizomatic and manages and edits Big Other.
