Date: 1949

"And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp."

— Orwell, George (1903-1950)

Date: 1971

"Everything spun around him; then his mind blanked, like a TV suddenly switched off."

— Jerzy N. Kosinski (1933-1991)

Date: 1984

"Case felt as though his brain were jammed."

— Gibson, William (b. 1948)

Date: 1984

"Sandstorms raged across the scoured floor of his skull, generating waves of high thin static that broke behind his eyes, spheres of purest crystal, expanding."

— Gibson, William (b. 1948)

Date: 1985

"In the dark the mind runs on like a devouring machine, the only thing awake in the universe."

— Delillo, Don (b. 1936)

Date: 1992

"If he was essentially a thinking machine, then he needed to be serviced."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"If your mind works like a cash register, anything you come up with is bound to be cheap"

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"Only this violence could break open a world constrained by the hidden cameras of conscience and vanity."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1998

"Vernon slumped with his tea while his mental odometer tallied the insults and humiliations."

— McEwan, Ian (b. 1948)

Date: June 19, 2000

"The record she'd given me was playing in my mind, and I kept trying to shut it off."

— Packer, ZZ (b. 1973)