Yair’s Reviews > Keep the Aspidistra Flying > Status Update

"Life had beaten him; but you can still beat life by turning your face away. Better to sink than rise. Down, down into the ghost-kingdom, the shadowy world where shame, effort, decency do not exist!"

Orwell, George. Keep the Aspidistra Flying (p. 158). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

"AS THE clock struck one Gordon slammed the shop door to and hurried, almost ran, to the branch of the Westminster Bank down the street."

Orwell, George. Keep the Aspidistra Flying (p. 114). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

The “never the time and the place” motif is not made enough of in novels.

Orwell, George. Keep the Aspidistra Flying (p. 90). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

"He stuck it into an envelope, addressed it and at once went out to get stamps from the slot machine. Post it to-night: these things look different in the morning. He dropped it into the pillar-box. So there was another friend gone west."

Orwell, George. Keep the Aspidistra Flying (p. 74). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

Their combined ages were two hundred and sixty-three years. None of them had ever been out of England, fought in war, been in prison, ridden a horse, travelled in an aeroplane, got married or given birth to a child. There seemed no reason why they should not continue in the same style until they died. Year in, year out, nothing ever happened in the Comstock family.

Orwell, George. Keep the Aspidistra Flying (p. 44).

"The upturned beam of a car, somewhere in the street parallel to Willowbed Road, penetrated the blind and threw into silhouette a leaf of the aspidistra, shaped like Agamemnon’s sword."

Orwell, George. Keep the Aspidistra Flying (p. 25). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

"The upturned beam of a car, somewhere in the street parallel to Willowbed Road, penetrated the blind and threw into silhouette a leaf of the aspidistra, shaped like Agamemnon’s sword."

Orwell, George. Keep the Aspidistra Flying (p. 25). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

"His mind was sticky with boredom. He couldn’t cope with rhymes and adjectives. You can’t, with only twopence halfpenny in your pocket."

Orwell, George. Keep the Aspidistra Flying (p. 3). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.