“... clues to a deeper mystery. The nightmarish story of a humble clerk in an insane bureaucracy in an anonymous city, unexpectedly thrown into an unpleasant situation he doesn’t understand, clearly owes something to Kafka. More useful, if only slightly less obvious points of comparison, however, would be more recent, and more American. Like the trilogy of films ...”

“... of his authors. What he was not was a gifted writer. Walter Scott, ‘The Great Unknown’ of the anonymous Waverley novels, was known to the point of dedication by many Scots, who did not mind that he had no taste (as an Episcopalian) for the national religion, or for clergymen, that he was an enthusiast for birth and breeding, and that he hated the Reform ...”

“... start to roll over the same shot, which does not change, only registers passing cars, the desolate anonymous spot, the grey weather. The credits end, and the shot continues for another second or so. Why don’t we have the movie to which this would be the ending? It’s possible that we do, and I’m not getting it. Possible too that we’re too far away in ...”

“... unobtrusive. Exotic things would happen to and around him but he would be a neutral figure – an anonymous blunt instrument wielded by a government department.’ As for all the sex, ‘perhaps Bond’s blatant heterosexuality is a subconscious protest against the current fashion for sexual confusion.’ Coward disagreed, and told Fleming (whom he addressed ...”

“... viewer): the story might make us wonder whether such an existential gesture is enough. Jardie’s anonymous sacrifice raises questions that are central to Binet’s novel. Hannah Arendt returned several times to the Hellenic idea of the ‘shining deed’, an act that would grant a kind of immortality to the otherwise vanishing actor, in a world where only ...”

“... victims include a stoner student who gets shot and a frightened office worker who’s being sent anonymous emails accusing him of paedophilia – ‘I bet fifty quid if we grabbed his home computer we’d get a stash of little girl pics,’ Child says. Hawthorn is gay and Child is black, but this isn’t a sign that Ridgway’s version of the Met is ...”

“... lives and opinions were worthy of respect and curiosity.’ Eileen thinks they might want to be anonymous but ‘none of them did. They’d all write their names on these forms much more legibly than in the visitors’ ledger, and answered so ingenuously, it broke my heart.’ Being a young woman was a trap, being older isn’t an improvement. The Bell ...”

“... Venice could take a stand against the Interdict only by subterfuge, often by publishing anonymous writings under false colophons. And by attacking the Interdict the authorities were admitting the existence of a ruling that, officially, they denied. The Interdict struggle ended in a face-saving compromise and had few lasting consequences. It wasn’t ...”

“... causes. There is further evidence of foul play, however. Seldom reveals that he has received an anonymous note consisting of Mrs Eagleton’s address, her time of death, a ‘neatly drawn circle’, and the announcement that this is ‘the first of the series’: the killer is apparently challenging him to a battle of wits. Brought together at the scene of ...”

“... that the whole thing might be taking place inside Pat’s head. Everything is recounted by an anonymous, seemingly omniscient but obviously unreliable third-person voice; and the narration is such a garble of mismatched registers, self-contradictions and pointless circumlocutions that it adds yet another layer of unreality to something which has little ...”

“... of mind has been mapped in intricate detail. But beyond it there is the hidden experience of the anonymous – the inner world of ‘the masses’, ‘the populace’, ‘the people’. These Victorians were collectively hugely conspicuous. In an age of industry, urbanisation and democracy they were significant as never before. They supplied the needs of an ...”

“... by a hodgepodge of new developments. The town is ‘everywhere and nowhere’; it is ‘perfectly anonymous’. The unnamed – and unlovely – Irish town at the centre of Sansom’s spirited and generous first novel owes something to his relocation. Ring Road’s entertaining preface denies the debt – ‘the town is not meant to be a replica of any ...”

“... serves as the justification for what the large majority of individuals experience as a vast anonymous power regulating their lives. As to the ideological aspect of their struggle, Frank states an obvious truth which, nonetheless, needs to be restated: the populists are fighting a war that cannot be won. If Republicans were effectively to ban ...”

“... Manhattan these days. The Lemur’s extras are smiling waitresses, not seen-it-all barkeeps; its anonymous New York voices say ‘yes-how-may-I help-you?’ not ‘how you doin’?’; its background noise is the hiss of espresso machines. If you don’t catch a ride to the Hamptons with your father-in-law in his chopper you must endure the discomforts of ...”

“... The traditional philosophers, Aristotelians, the Schoolmen, were content with mystery. In 1638 an anonymous speaker at the Bureau d’Adresse offers this version in a debate on the causes of tidal motion:Just as it would be fruitless to wonder what the cause of a horse’s motion is, given that even the most ignorant people recognise that it comes from the ...”