“... to make the running in a debate which was to lead to the White Paper on ‘Employment Policy’ of May 1944 – the one Mrs Thatcher used to carry about in her handbag. The Section’s opening paper focused on the counter-cyclical management of total demand, with the clear implication that in depressions the Budget should run into deficit, debt being repaid in ...”

“... critics of GM foods are governed by mere sentiment, by soft-centred unreflective feelings that may conflict with their more considered judgments. On the other hand, if the word is understood in its 18th-century sense, sentiment is not a feeling that could fail to be engaged. In that sense, it is an emotion associated with what moves and affects us, and its ...”

“... on manufacturing jobs, on taking the fight to the terrorists, and on sharing the love at home. He may even be able to claim for a while that by offering something to each side of the partisan divide he is starting to bridge it. But all he will be doing is papering over the gaping cracks. Tax cuts coupled with unfunded government spending will fuel inflation ...”

“... of course: ‘Liberty versus Communism; Reagan-Bush ’84.’ And even today, whatever people may think in other regions of the United States, Miami remains unrepentantly, exuberantly Reagan country. Indeed, what is most remarkable about Cuban Miami is that here may be found the staunchest of the right-wing true ...”

“... sage in point of approachability. To experience the sage, you must have read his work; the meeting may come later, and may disappoint. With the guru, personal contact matters most and the first encounter must succeed; the writing need only offer a clue to the presence. Paul de Man said enough memorable things to be quoted ...”

“... books complement one another uncannily, as though the authors, like the two campus novelists in David Lodge’s Small World, had agreed to divide up the world between them. By secret treaty, as it were, O’Keeffe got to do facts, and Edwards opinions. The opinions, it should at once be said, are the fruit of immense dedication. Edwards has written widely ...”

“... It may be an accident of rereading that makes me want to put James Baldwin’s essays and novels together, to see The Fire Next Time and Giovanni’s Room, for example, as versions of each other. But the matched books do make interesting sense: more thoughtful sense, perhaps, than the already powerful separate stories ...”

“... made a ‘five-figure contribution’; the rest was covered by the then owners of the hotel, David and Frederick Barclay, identical twins who appeared on the Sunday Times Rich List later that month with a combined fortune of £2.3 billion.This wasn’t the first time the Barclays had helped to house Thatcher. After leaving Number Ten she had moved into ...”

“... among many rights which were old, one which was new: ‘That the Subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Condition and as allowed by Law.’ This was the model for the American Bill of Rights of 1791: ‘A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear ...”

“... in order to take in the food that I see in the centre, and, at an earlier stage, some other sense may have told me which way to go in order to get into the position to eat. Our philosophical tradition is a very theoretical one and it is easy for us to forget how much our own actions contribute to the picture of the world around us. We think of the world as ...”

“... heart. Every tree, every hedge is a bouquet of blossoms and makes you want to turn into a May bug, so as to float in this sea of fragrances and draw all your nourishment from it. A May bug? Goethe’s Maienkäfer is an odd word, either an old form of Maikäfer (‘cockchafer’) or a misprint for Marienkäfer ...”

“... the sixth move, different games start to move along different paths. The difference at this stage may be tiny – a bishop goes one square further – but the game may by that action be tilted towards a very different finale. The position of the pieces on the board after fifty moves is, in some sense, a consequence of what ...”

“... here – ‘entertain’ might be more appropriate. For Donoghue’s Stevens it is ‘as if’ I may entertain the fiction that it’s sunny outside when it’s raining; but exquisite as my conviction may be, I’m still getting wet. Then again, it’s ‘as if’ I’m really still dry. None of which seems to me to refute ...”

“... year of what has often been called the Peasants’ Revolt. The insurgency began in Essex in late May, spread quickly to Kent and on 13 June the rebels gathered on Blackheath, entering London the next day. Joined by many from the city, they sacked John of Gaunt’s palace of the Savoy and forced the king, the 14-year-old Richard II, to meet them at Mile ...”

“... in common, is, we now realise, ‘constructed’, ‘a product of culture’. Take nakedness. One may doubt whether early modern English men and women were ever naked. In the mid-17th century Quakers went ‘naked for a sign’, but they often turn out to have been wearing sackcloth coats – ‘naked’ here means without shoes, hats or outer garments. Men ...”