“... from 1937, eventually precipitating a clash with the US. For conservatives, the war of national self-defence began in December 1941 when Japan, suffering terribly under American sanctions, fought back by launching an attack on Pearl Harbor. On 14 August, in a statement to mark the 70th anniversary of surrender, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe surprised nobody but ...”

“... a Church (c.1905) to the Klimt-esque Shroud of Christ (1908); from the sensuous fluidity of the Self-Portrait (1908-10), which would recall Gauguin were it not for Malevich’s unmistakeable blunt stare, to the green-grey tones – Malevich later called it ‘Cézannism’ – of Landscape (1911). The succession of idioms is striking for its speed: months ...”

“... and finally in his own (he does later admit to his departure), must first collapse into a weeping, self-accusing heap and then get a second chance: not to prove his courage but to hoist the masculinity myth back into place. He rescues Ebba in the snow (even if he does have to abandon the children to do it), and sympathises with her when she too becomes afraid ...”

“... Prints​ are defined by their reproducibility, but the monotype is self-destructive, its printable design effaced after one or two passes through a press. Since the printmaker neither etches nor engraves into the plate, but merely draws or paints directly onto its surface, the transfer of ink from plate to paper can only truly be made once (as the ‘mono’ in monotype suggests ...”

“... change the past or forestall impending danger. ‘Dear Comrade of the Boarding House’ starts as self-description: ‘This is the poem in which your jeep does not crash,’ or ‘this poem is the hospital in which you are healed,’ or this is the poem in which the dead friend does ‘not crawl back to me night after night for fifteen years/returned but ...”

“... onto walls, scuffed at the edges, the paint chipped or marked.The arrangement is flanked by two self-portraits, painted in 1958 and 1972. Gilmore is self-lacerating in both, detailing her wrinkles, the bags under her eyes, her furrowed brow. In the earlier painting she cuts an elegant figure, in diamond earrings and a ...”

“... as he is to opponents whom his antics put off their stroke? McEnroe is a perfectionist, and self-hatred and self-castigation are the obverse side of his perfectionism. Evans tells us that most of his bad language on court is directed against himself, even though some obtuse umpires don’t realise it. At Wimbledon in ...”

“... main plot of Rotten Borough centres on the efforts of Bellairs and his associates to unmask the self-righteous municipal dignitaries who use the Town Council as a mere sub-committee of the Board of Commerce, which is the seat of their power. They include a strict Nonconformist mayor with epicurean tastes and aspirations to knighthood, a ...”

“... have regretted, but which nevertheless coloured his attitude to life. How much it contributed to self-knowledge is debatable, or so one might think in the light of one intriguing anecdote included in this book. It appears that on a visit to Maugham H.G. Wells drew his fingers along the edition of his complete works that he had presented to his fellow ...”

“... of what we say inside and outside philosophy is strictly meaningless. But there is pleasure in self-denial, especially when it involves sweeping away the results of other people’s self-indulgence. Anyway, the book is written with such spirit and dash, that, though it is an attempt to limit our minds, it is ...”

“... of the impossible. This film is a story of a woman in a man’s world. Chastain is too tight and self-contained for anyone to feel sorry for her, and she certainly doesn’t feel sorry for herself. When she is first allowed to attend a meeting with Gandolfini – that is, to sit off at some distance in the same room with him – she answers his ...”

“... Michael Douglas as Liberace acts up onstage and off, twinkles with a coy kindness that is all self-admiration but quite fetching even so; Damon is bewildered and wary and captivated in just the right proportions, and his shift from baffled gay guy into trinketed and tinted toy boy is beautifully done. Both actors, throughout the movie, manage to hang on ...”

“... to yourself: I’m me.’ Hujar’s subjects seem to have heeded the same advice: they exhibit a self-possession tending to the monumental. You can see it in his 1981 portrait of the actor Madeline Kahn. Hujar posed her in an empty studio, wrapped in a hulking, dark coat: she looks like a solid black mass from which face, hands and legs emerge. The ...”

“... much, just more fulsomely admired than he is now. He is not very mature about this; apt to cry in self-pity, drink too much and throw objects at the mirror image of his failed self. In one of the film’s several great scenes he meets an agent, Marvin Schwarz, fabulously hammed up by Al Pacino, who explains to him that ...”

“... Israel’s violation of human rights but to join the Palestinian people in their struggle for self-determination. For a number of years, I spent most weekends with Ta’ayush in the West Bank; during the week I would write about our activities for the local and international press. My pieces caught the eye of a professor from Haifa University, who wrote a ...”