“As all historians know, the past is a great darkness,
and filled with echoes.“ THMT
“I want everything back, the way it was.
But there is no point to it, this wanting.“ THMT
“Is that how we lived, then? But we lived as usual. Everyone does, most of the time.
Whatever is going on is as usual. Even this is as usual, now.“ THMT
“We thought we had such problems.
How were we to know we were happy?” THMT
“It’s like walking into the past.” Commander
“A movie about the past is not the same as the past.” Chapter 37 Offred THMT
“He tried to squeeze out some childhood memory that should tell him
whether London had always been like this” Chapter 1 1984
“‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘
controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’”
“Within twenty years at most, he reflected, the huge and simple question ‘
Was life better before the Revolution than it is now?’ would have ceased once and for all to be answerable.” 1984
“History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present
in which the Party is always right.“ 1984