“... have to live with and use. The day will come When we’ll have to. But for now They’re useless, more trees in a landscape of trees. I take ‘useless’ to be a term of pleasure. Responsibilities may begin in dreams, as Yeats and Delmore Schwartz mused: but such a beginning can be eluded, Ashbery takes pleasure in assuming. There is time yet. ‘Not until ...”

“... said: ‘Well, then, there is nothing to worry about. I have rarely come across a family with more than sixteen.’ Jolly places, confessionals. Not until she was in her fifties did Elizabeth Longford turn to writing. Her journalism included columns for Beaverbrook and ‘clean’ articles for the News of the World. Contemplating a biography of her ...”

“... took place in America, and since then there have been two parallel social developments that more and more put each other out.’ Like many of Wilson’s distended aperçus, this one has a Quasimodo-like hunch, and yet like Quasimodo it still rings a bell. Even so, few Brits could have imagined, as they outstayed an ...”

“... Golding in 1956, in a collection called Sometime, Never. Taken together the three stories read more like fables than fantasy or science fiction, and they glance curiously at the contemporary world they are not directly seeking to imitate. But whereas Wyndham explores genetics and medical experiments in an undated time and Golding takes on inventions in ...”

“... aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, which were characterised by spectacular marine battles.’ In more surrealist mode, a painting by the Czech artist Zdeněk Burian showing a confrontation between a plated and spiked stegosaurian and a surprised-looking Antrodemus is given a psychological reading: ‘Violent arguments between Burian’s parents marred his ...”

“... So what were the differences between the civilisations that disappeared and those that adapted more or less successfully to changing circumstances over the millennia? To say that the societies that have survived have done so because they managed their habitats well, maintained profitable relationships with their neighbours and prevented their members from ...”

“... about his predecessor ‘the first George W.’, but it’s hard to imagine two politicians with more different styles. George Bush invites world leaders to barbeques at his Texas ranch, and gives nicknames to the members of his cabinet. (‘Pablo’ for the hapless Paul O’Neill; ‘Z-Man’ for Robert Zoellick.) George Washington, on the other hand, was ...”

“... But he was tickled by the idea of life as a moviemaker.His next film, Days of Heaven (1978), was more flagrantly beautiful and even more widely admired. It’s the story of an outlaw trio fleeing from a murder committed in a factory in Chicago in 1916, and coming to rest at the prairie ranch of a wealthy farmer. The ...”

“... forger called Gabriel Varney, who was reworked from elements in the life of the forger-poisoner Thomas Griffiths Wainewright. Bulwer-Lytton was the most distinguished of the sensationally popular Newgate novelists. His closest rival, Harrison Ainsworth, managed nothing more than romantic escapism with a thick accretion of ...”

“... roster of American writers, including Robert Coover, Don DeLillo, Philip K. Dick, Joseph Heller, Thomas Pynchon, Ishmael Reed, Philip Roth and Garry Wills – whose analyses of Nixon, Reagan and Wayne blazed the trail for Nixon at the Movies – took him on as a character. Pundits have searched for literary antecedents (Uriah Heep, Tartuffe, Richard ...”

“... which actually appeared before I had to stop looking. Even so, the figures reveal an average of more than one fairly substantial discussion for every day since publication.Fourteen reviews appeared on the day of publication or on the first possible day after in the case of the Sunday papers or other non-dailies. Two others appeared on what might effectively ...”

“... however, that puppies might serve as well as young virgins. A bit later, the English physician Thomas Sydenham recommended Shunamitism to his patients, as did the Dutch medical professor Hermann Boerhaave and the German Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland in the 18th century. James Copeland, an English medical authority who was quoted as late as the 20th century on ...”

“... all. While Chateaubriand longs for the presence of close family and friends, nothing irritates him more than empty chatter or casual acquaintances: ‘Have mercy on me!’ he begs when threatened with a visit from certain English lords and ladies. ‘Who will rescue me from these persecutions?’ Generally speaking, he tells us, ‘I do not talk with casual ...”

“... to the Republican governor of Missouri?’ Too often, the answer was yes, I had – sometimes more than once. My Sheena story was my best story, the anecdote that rarely failed, which was fortunate, because I couldn’t stop telling it, usually in the same way, even with the same pauses and hand gestures. At the end, I would play on my phone one of ...”

“... so it doesn’t get in the way; others have a metal extension that serves as a clothes rack. In more adventurous versions, the cradle holding the iron is reconfigured as an area of heat-resistant material in the shape of a helipad. All this to save labour. And yet the stanchion is so wispy that festoons of flex soon snarl up on either side of ...”