“... so to speak, you would imagine yourself studying a problem kid from a ghetto, where it is a wise child who knows his own father. Yet Clinton’s great contribution to American domestic politics has been his stress on the deplorable lack of moral continence among the underclass. His mantra, as a leader of the conservative Democratic Leadership ...”

“... minorities – no Jews, no Poles, no Italians – and had nominated only one other, the hapless Michael Dukakis. But this was the response of a baby boomer, when in fact one of the remarkable things about the Obama campaign was that it wasn’t about race at all. Obama, though he studiously copied his speaking style from King and other preachers, was not ...”

“... of Pentire Head in North Cornwall. Now Perrin has used his scholarship to write an exceptionally wise biography called Menlove – the life of John Menlove Edwards, one of the strongest and boldest climbers between the wars and the chief explorer of the cliffs round Llanberis and the Ogwen valley in Snowdonia.* Edwards was a psychiatrist in Liverpool, noted ...”

“... it was entirely in character that on her husband’s becoming Prelate of the Order of St Michael and St George she adopted the style of an (honorary) knight’s wife, though she had no right to it – was not wise in the management of a tough little boy and systematically denied him any display of love at all. Her ...”

“... Delhi in memory of Indira Gandhi. A little group of us flew out together, Air India, first class: Michael Foot, Jean Floud, William Radice, with Sir Richard Attenborough in pursuit. It was my pleasure to travel with my old friend and newly-minted Dame, Iris Murdoch. I’ve never travelled first before, and well! Cocktails, champagne, caviar, lobster ... Young ...”

“... bijou library steps might be with ‘the Pope of Mope’.11 October. Sam F. rings to say that Michael Neve has died, and I sit in the front room and think about him. He was a great chronicler, a remembrancer, recording stuff one had said and funny remarks, so that one felt a bigger personality or a more three-dimensional one. He was ...”

“... shaky start, it was the deus ex (hit) machina of MTV that was the key, as it was for Madonna and Michael Jackson. People of a certain age will never forget the lush, melodramatic promo for ‘Purple Rain’ and the cheeky, pared-down video for ‘Kiss’.2How did he get away with some of this stuff? Controversy came with a full-colour fold-out poster of ...”

“... of a leadership election among Conservative MPs in which she secured more votes than her rival Michael Heseltine but not quite enough to prevent the contest going to a second round. At that point her cabinet collectively turned against her and let her know that she needed to step down for their sake. They couched it as a plea to save the party from ...”

“... Press of what will eventually be a complete Kierkegaard in translation. See Nations slowly wise, and meanly just, To buried Merit raise the tardy Bust, Dr Johnson remarked, but it isn’t the Danes who are raising this ‘tardy Bust’ to their own most famous son. They continue to affect the humorous indifference and condescending contempt which for ...”

“... Waldorf had been put through Eton and Oxford to become an English gentleman, ‘modest, selfless, wise, prompting quietly in the wings rather than acting on the stage’ in the description of the political contacts-man and Astor consigliere Tom Jones, using words of the sort that later stuck like labels to Waldorf’s son David wherever he went. Waldorf’s ...”

“... for clemency awaited his decision. Among the applicants, it is reported, were Conrad Black; Michael Milken, of junk bond fame; John Walker Lindh, the ‘American Taliban’; a former Republican congressman jailed for accepting bribes; and a former Democratic governor of Louisiana, convicted on racketeering charges. They were doomed to ...”

“... little further off, in inappropriateness. Serious poems can be still composed with rhymes, but the wise poet avoids the virtuoso forms on such occasions, those which call attention heavily (and therefore often comically) to their rhymes. That rhyme applied lightly in serious poems can work will be seen in Auden’s ‘Shield of Achilles’, and in many of ...”

“... Perhaps the real test of an anthology is whether it convincingly brings fresh material forward. Michael Harper, Dave Smith, Albert Goldbarth: Vendler takes risks at the Contemporary end of her Book, and mostly carries them off. Though one looks in vain for Hass or Dulpen, there is much to please, including a clutch of decorously unfeminist women. Louise ...”

“... subjects before 1919, and thereafter citizens of the new state of Czechoslovakia (where it seemed wise to speak Czech, at least in public). Prague in the interwar years was cosmopolitan even by the standards of Central Europe: alongside Czech schools, it could boast German gymnasia, Russian and French lycées, and an English grammar school. It was to the last ...”

“... cloth. ‘Have we made shirts for you before, sir?’ a voice asked, an assured voice, immensely wise. An unsympathetic editor might have balked at this. What counter? It hasn’t been mentioned before. How did Viri get there? Where’s the transition? Salter jumps the gap from one kind of time to another, from broad narrative time to tight episodic ...”