Six quotes that show 2017 is already George Orwell's 1984

George Orwell's 1984 has become the most popular selling book on Amazon in the US, with the spike in sales being attributed to remarks made by President Donald Trump's media team following his inauguration.

Trump aide Kellyanne Conway's reference to "alternative facts" brought to mind 1984's famous doublethink, in which a totalitarian government is able to present contradictory facts as true.

Even before Conway's pronouncements, the White House's reaction to criticism that fewer spectators were present for President Trump's swearing in than Barack Obama's had already taken an Orwellian turn.

In his initial rebuttal of photo evidence clearly showing the difference in size of the two crowds White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Trump's swearing in garnered "the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period".

However, the with the rise of increasingly authoritarian leaders across the globe painting themselves in the image of Big Brother and caring increasingly little about the truth, many were already convinced 2017 might be the year that Orwell's dystopian future would become a reality.

"You're saying it's a falsehood and Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that." Kellyanne Conway defending White House press secretary Sean Spicer.

"His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them..." George Orwell on doublethink.

"From this day forward, it's going to be only America first, America first," Donald Trump on America.

"There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party," George Orwell on loyalty.

"He's running his country and at least he's a leader, unlike what we have in this country," Donald Trump on Vladimir Putin.

"The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia," George Orwell on the enemy.

"Lock her up," "Trump that bitch," "Build a wall," overheard at a Trump Rally.

"A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic," George Orwell on mass hate.

"The nobility of securing the people's will, is more important to me than Egypt's rule," Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi on revolution.

"One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship," George Orwell on revolution.

"One or two [children] is not enough. To make our nation stronger, we need a more dynamic and younger population. In this country, [opponents] have been engaged in the treason of birth control for years and sought to dry up our generation." President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the family.

"The only recognised purpose of marriage was to beget children for the service of the Party. Sexual intercourse was to be looked on as a slightly disgusting minor operation, like having an enema," George Orwell on the family.