“... unexpectedly three years ago, before the editing of the second volume was complete, so maybe this self-indulgence was never intended for public consumption. Perhaps, too, some of the more extreme statements in the second volume about the dissolution of that societal glue were similarly not supposed to see the light of day. I doubt it, though. ...”

“... withdraw from Palestinian territory illegally occupied since March (Israel’s excuse has been ‘self-defence’). Israel has refused to comply, but in this case the UN is to be ignored – ‘we’ understand that Israel must defend its citizens. Neologisms such as ‘anticipatory pre-emption’ and ‘preventive ...”

“... tone usually adopted by studies of media institutions and mergers and tycoons, it has a seam of self-deprecation running through it, which reminds you intermittently that Panorama has been an enterprise with important strengths and weaknesses, and that these have something to tell us about the broader journalistic culture and society that produced it. In a ...”

“... philosophy books or books by Ruskin – by giving them Latin titles. It was the same unaffected self-confidence, combined with chronic insomnia and an incapacity for lazing around, that enabled Collingwood to sustain a part-time career as an archaeologist. He found it a relief from the idiocies of philosophy, and his publications, both popular and ...”

“... being representationally specific. At the same time his behaviour became more infantile, more self-consciously histrionic; at parties he danced and sang and cooked, built fires that were too big, drank too much and insulted people; at home he was more demanding and jealous and more prone to violent tantrums, less able to bear being thwarted or even ...”

“... and that despite the many occasions on which it has drawn condemnation – the granting of self-government to a whites-only regime; the exiling in 1950 of Seretse Khama, then the heir to the Bangwato chieftaincy and eventually the first president of Botswana, for marrying a white woman; the refusal to take a tougher line against apartheid – it has ...”

“... published) ‘Italian’ Symphony, and most of his other work. He had an unexpectedly Brahmsian self-critical anxiety when confronting tradition, and a perfectionism bordering on the censorious. His father, as Devrient noted, feared this latter quality would prevent him from finding a wife or an opera libretto, and though he secured the first he never ...”

“... Generalissimo’s diary is still one of the main sources for the Xi’an Incident, though it is self-serving and was probably redrafted. One of the difficulties of writing about him is the paucity of new material: there has been nothing comparable to the publication of Mao’s secret speeches or the revelations of his doctor. Biographers have always had a ...”

“... democracy – was invented by the Scots. The contingency of truth, the incoherence of the self, the limitations of Enlightenment: Hogg’s preoccupations are modern. His doubtful narratives – in which events are retold from multiple perspectives, and oral tradition confronts the authority of print – are innovative and influential. There is a case ...”

“... and permissive claptrap set the scene for a society in which the old virtues of discipline and self-restraint were denigrated.’ Happily for the government, General Galtieri was already planning his April invasion of the Falkland Islands. However, the idea that the indulgences of the 1960s were to blame for the pathologies of the 1980s had been ...”

“... were justifiable: he stole the food because his party was starving; the people he shot he shot in self-defence, or to forestall even larger massacres, or in the greater interest of ending the Arab slave trade. Third, if they might not have been strictly justified, they may nonetheless have been excusable, usually because of Stanley’s sufferings, either on ...”

“... failure when his strength left him, his passion faded.’ The poems written at Ooty had been self-denying. ‘Wood Song’ describes ‘agonies/ That love can never consummate’, but that last day’s events had changed Lewis’s mind: as soon as he left, on the long train journey to Karachi, he was writing letters to Aykroyd to make it clear that their ...”

“... is a protean idea of a person, rather confused, rather desperate, but complete in his devotion to self-authorship. His every move shows him to be a modern conundrum about race and identity and selfhood. He might make us laugh, but he might also frighten us into recognising the excesses we demand of those we choose to entertain us. For my money he also ...”

“... dignities, stuffs, individualities. Sleep in Courbet is the opposite of death’s second self. It is warmth, deep breathing, restless dreamwork, post-coital flush. Ogling Courbet’s two lesbians in Sleep, and then laying an optical hand on the pubic hair and peeping clitoris in The Origin of the World, I thought suddenly of the lines in ...”

“... You’ve​ got to love Zadie Smith. When The Fraud arrived I did what no self-respecting reviewer should ever do. I flipped the book open and peeked at a random chapter. I know, I know. Never peek. It can spoil Christmas. But sometimes it’s just too tempting, and sometimes knowing what’s under the wrapping paper can make it even more fun to tear it off when the big day comes ...”