A. N. Wilson

"No creature, animal or human, emerges with much dignity from Animal Farm and it reminds us that there is no political system in the history of the world that is innocent. I remember conversations about Animal Farm with Orwells great friend Malcolm Muggeridge who had personally witnessed Stalins show trials in the Soviet Union. "Yes," he would say when I clumsily likened these to the pigs behaviour in Animal Farm. "But, you know, I have come to see that Eleanor Roosevelt" — ie the embodiment of western smug liberalism — "did more damage to the world than Hitler and Stalin combined." I thought of those words when I finished my umpteenth reread of Orwells masterpiece, and realised he would certainly have agreed."

"In universities and intellectual circles, academics can guarantee themselves popularity — or, which is just as satisfying, unpopularity — by being opinionated rather than by being learned."