“... a now much scorned Enlightenment rationality. In this sense, a theory of the body runs the risk of self-contradiction, recovering for the mind just what was meant to deflate it; but if the body provides us with a little sensuous certitude in a progressively abstract world, it is also an elaborately coded affair, and so caters to the intellectual’s passion ...”

“... Empire. But his eminence owed less to any outstanding military gifts than to the most shameless self-promotion. That unparalleled exhibitionist Sir Gerald Nabarro once said that without his moustache he might be mistaken for a nobody like Harold Wilson; behind his formidable moustache and haughty stare Kitchener was as scheming and ambitious a ...”

“... with a similar ‘teacher’, the sensei. Here, too, discipline is the key to harmony and self-fulfilment:    The sensei clapped his hands and it was time to begin ... Ito led the stretching and calisthenics, the others facing him in two lines. Ransom concentrated on duplicating his every move. With years of scrupulous imitation he might gain ...”

“... more like a starved poet than a revolutionist’. (Davitt in return called O’Donnell a ‘self-seeker and egotist’, ‘a most accomplished fraud, dishonest, treacherous, and aiming for office’.) These descriptions – and, perhaps, this invective – are not merely indicative of the prodigious detail of T.W. Moody’s new study: they supply much ...”

“... a second time and the Boat of Ra flew past as he came forth. The Two-Lands shivered beneath ... Self-aggrandisement was no sin in ancient Egypt. In fact, the more splendidly boastful one’s passage into the next world, the more secure one’s hold on the eternal goodies. Mailer’s main characters spend many a page locked into formal bouts of boasting ...”

“... contemporary style. It is wholly devoid even of latent vanity, for vanity goes with a process of self-creation, even if it is inadvertent; and though Heppenstall’s writing produces an unforgettable image of a way of life, it does not locate a personality in the midst of it. The effect is rather like that of a picture by Bonnard or Vuillard, which seems ...”

“... that could be deduced from a comprehensive biography like this one, or indeed from Waugh’s own self-projections, whether in his own life or in the heroes of his novels. Powell perceived, for instance, that Waugh was perfectly at home in his father’s house, that the pair were for the most part on affectionate terms and understood each other very ...”

“... and too little creation’. This mode brings you Tolstoy’s historiography, or the relentless self-commentary of certain metafictionists. But there’s another option: the novel that doesn’t alternate drama and analysis but dramatises analysis itself. In such novels, characters are understood more by what they think and say than by what they do, and the ...”

“... and the vicissitudes of nation-building are less compelling subjects than the everyday task of self-individuation. Their cultural reference points are eclectic and varied, their relationship with the tribal pieties of their parents’ and grandparents’ generation often tongue-in-cheek. To be pigeonholed by well-meaning readers, in spite of this, as a ...”

“... themselves, and thus tend to practise what they preach. Studying sexuality is always at some level self-study, rather as writing about popular culture, for most of the students who do it these days, involves watching movies and TV shows they would have watched anyway. There is thus a convenient continuity between one’s academic and one’s actual life, as ...”

“... Rose Wilder Lane, who wrote the books with her mother, intended them to be a defence of ‘the self-reliant, the independent, the courageous man’ whom she saw ‘penalised from every direction’, but especially by the New Deal, which was ‘killing what, to me, is the American pioneering spirit’. She told a friend that if only there were a politician ...”

“... the Celtic Tiger was starting to roar, but belonged in spirit to an earlier, less well-heeled and self-assured society. Most of the book is set on the wild western coast of County Mayo, a place with some symbolic resonance in Irish letters. It is the setting for Synge’s great drama The Playboy of the Western World, and has come to be associated with all ...”

“... Perhaps it’s a new kind of narcissism, where you only get to feel fully realised, successful and self-loving when you look at your reflection in the pool and see your idol. And having your idol’s shoes and handbag is one of the ways to achieve that. Fame today is a matryoshka doll: inside each celebrity is a series of smaller, hollow simulacra, and, at the ...”

“... of class and inequality to bear on subject matter buried deep in the foundations of America’s self-image, and which might be perceived as conservative. The characters in Olive, Again who uncritically celebrate their Americanness are satirised: the bleak English teacher Mrs Ringrose dressing up as a Pilgrim at Thanksgiving, or the foolish Fergus MacPherson ...”

“... of more than four hundred declarations of war from the late 16th century to 1939 reveals that self-defence and the enforcement of treaty, international or succession laws were the reasons cited most often by states. In addition to permitting frequent armed conflict, the lawful status of war had other consequences for international relations. Since force ...”