1984 Study

Cards (19)

  • "And he did see them, for a fleeting instant, before the scenery of his mind changed. He saw five fingers. There was no deformity."
  • "Books, also, were recalled and rewritten again and again, and were invariably reissued without any admission that any alteration has been made."
  • "The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely."
  • "The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats"
  • "He looked round the canteen. A low-ceilinged, crowded room, its walls grimy from the contact of innumerable bodies; […] tables and chairs placed so close together that you sat with elbows touching;"
  • "Smith! Screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen. '6079 Smith W.! Yes, YOU! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You're not trying."
  • "They're disappointed because they couldn't go to see the hanging."
  • "It was a noise that set one's teeth on edge and bristled the hair at the back of one's neck. The Hate had started."
  •  "War had been literally continuous.
  • "She bought the glass paperweight over to the bed to have a look at it in a better light. He took it out of her hand, fascinated as always by the soft, rainwatery appearance of the glass. [to Julia] "It's a little chunk of history that they've forgotten to alter. It's a message from a hundred years ago, if one knew how to read it."
  • "Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version."
  • "War is Peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."
  •  "He put the diary away in the drawer. It was quite useless to think of hiding it, but her could at least makes sure whether or not its existence had been discovered. A hair, laid across the page ends what too obvious. With the tip of his finger he picked up an identifiable grain of whitish dust and deposited it on the corner of the cover, where it was bound to be shaken off if the book was moved."
  • “‘The rat,’ said O’Brien, still addressing his invisible audience, ‘although a rodent, is carnivorous. You are aware of that. You will have heard of the things that happen in the poor quarters of this town […] They also attack sick or dying people.” 
  • “[…] there was just one person to whom he could transfer his punishment-one body that he could thrust between himself and the rats. And he was shouting frantically, over and over: ‘Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don’t care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!’” 
  • 'You're a traitor,' yelled the boy, 'You're a thought criminal.'
  • "Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."
  • The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously.
  • "Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been re-written, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been re-named, every date had been altered."