“... The thorough understanding of a difficult text, even of one written in one’s own language, may be made far easier by a good commentary. Eliot himself provided, if not a commentary, useful notes upon The Waste Land, and an Oxford don, John Fuller, has written an excellent commentary on Auden’s poems. In the case of a text written in an ancient language, a commentary is particularly useful ...”

“... professionalism in football itself, one realises, to put it bluntly, that supreme achievement may be unprofessional; what professionalism ensures is a minimal level of competence which may be mediocre, and a maximum of achievement seems to be impossible on the basis of mere mastery, on the basis of a thoroughly ...”

“... down for him.’ Weber’s remark as to the German spirit of Fidelio is significant. He himself may be regarded as the father-figure of the nationalist movement in music that was soon to sweep across Europe; and in his position as Music Director at the Dresden opera house, he attempted to place German opera on a firm footing. To this end, he wrote his own ...”

“... on the earnings of their ‘prostitution’ – and on those two counts, the jury convicted. It may be debatable whether such things ought to be criminal offences; if so, how they should be defined; and what should be the burden of proof. But that was how the law stood then, and on this occasion at least it was the prosecution, and not the law, that made an ...”

“... his chief concern is to explain the conduct, or misconduct, of the war to his father. It may be that the Guards had better opportunities of knowing what was afoot through being stationed near headquarters, but how an ensign barely of age contrives to get hold of so much information about the dispositions, strengths, handicaps and intentions of the ...”

“... was by a smart answer on those lines that Wilde wrong-footed himself in the witness-box – which may be why, when some tennis mothers were reported this year to be mounting indignant guard to protect their teen-aged daughters from homosexual seduction in the locker-rooms, none of the grandes dames of the circuit uttered an assurance that in most cases there ...”

“... of course: but what of their human and moral nature, their style of writing and speaking? It may be worth noting that all three are childless and parentful: all three have been devoted to Protestant Christian parents and have (to my regret) firmly rejected the faith of their fathers. Jennie Lee’s new book, My Life with Nye, is a valuable personal ...”

“... fails to explain the great majority of myths. In America, a person ignorant of Greek or Latin may get himself paid for teaching the ancient classics by acquiring a smattering of Freud, taking care not to dilute it by an acquaintance with the writings of more recent psychologists. Even some learned and intelligent writers who have devoted themselves to the ...”

“... experiment’ as a turning point for Britain, inasmuch as hostility to that experiment may be so strong as to preclude the establishment of a new consensus. In its concluding chapters the book appears to turn into a textbook on the British constitution, written for the particular benefit of American students, who find it difficult to imagine our ...”

“... of confrontation which he has used against the British printing unions in the Wapping dispute may hark back to his 19th-century predecessor as proprietor of the Times, but they were perfected in the US management-union wars of the 1970s, which were quite unarguably won by the managements. Equally clearly, the British unions had not learnt the lessons. All ...”

“... offshore island otherwise describable as the landmass of Europe and Asia is that by so doing one may avoid all direct contact with the English literary establishment, which I have nonetheless managed to enter with the publication of a novel called Wales’ Work.1 In Paris, where I have lived even longer than Graham Greene, avoiding literature is not ...”

“... would have hit any more.’ Healey and Gilmour – and indeed Edward Heath and James Callaghan – may be thought to have spoken for those two-thirds of poll respondents who decided that Mrs Thatcher had been guilty of a brutal misjudgment: and for the many people who believe that she overrode a rational understanding on the use of counter-terror, together ...”

“... Grey Rabbit (1929-1973), Richmal Crompton thought of Just William and kept him going for 48 years, May Annette Beauchamp invented herself as Elizabeth. All three of them were, and had to be, resilient women, gallant survivors, Elizabeth in particular. As May Beauchamp, she had, after all, a doubtful start. Her father had ...”

“... that shatters as it rings – clearly means something above and beyond this, and his meaning may be justified in the light of Rilke’s conception of the sublime nature of poetic utterance. Unfortunately, the sublime and the quotidian are not always the most compatible of partners, and the observer who was immune to the enchantment of Rilke’s poetry ...”

“... is perhaps because readers no longer expect books simply to ‘reflect’ reality. Another reason may be that mirrors themselves are no longer convex, as they usually were until the 17th century, so that the word has ceased to carry the attractive promise of a larger reality compressed into a small and manageable compass. One of the most widely read of all ...”