Down and Out... (George Orwell)

"And there is another feeling that is a great consolation in poverty. It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. it takes off a lot of anxiety."

-George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London

I am reading Down and Out in Paris and London at the moment, among the pile of books I read in the same period of time. So far I am in the Paris part. I don't read enough Orwell, just like I don't read enough Nabokov.We forget that he wrote more than Animal Farms and 1984. This is why I bought this book and decided to read it. Christopher Hitchens, who was a great admirer of Orwell, said that he "spoke the truth." This is how I feel reading it, not merely seeing a reality, but seeing the universal truth that is at the core of it. Poverty has never felt so true. Anyway, I wanted to quote Orwell's work without using his two most famous books, this struck me when I read it.So I decided to share it.