Burmese Days (Classics To Go)

by George Orwell

His brain, though cunning, was quite barbaric, and it never worked except for some definite end; mere meditation was beyond him.

All his meals were swift, passionate and enormous; they were not meals so much as orgies, debauches of curry and rice.

Happiness is not in money. What can you want with more money now?’

Have you swallowed a dictionary?

and really that man loved us like a dog.

Provided they were given no freedom he thought them the most charming people alive.

Flory pushed back his chair and stood up. It must not, it could not — no, it simply should not go on any longer! He must get out of this room quickly, before something happened inside his head and he began to smash the furniture and throw bottles at the pictures. Dull boozing witless porkers! Was it possible that they could go on week after week, year after year, repeating word for word the same evil-minded drivel, like a parody of a fifth-rate story in Blackwood’s? Would none of them EVER think of anything new to say? Oh, what a place, what people! What a civilization is this of ours — this godless civilization founded on whisky, Blackwood’s and the ‘Bonzo’ pictures! God have mercy on us, for all of us are part of it.

The heat rolled from the earth like the breath of an oven.