“... reviews and lectures that he did write fill a sizeable volume). Despairing confessions of failure, self-exhortations to patience, the jubilant acknowledgment of gifts of poems – all set down in the poet’s exquisite round hand (the hand he adopted at the same time as he Germanised his name from René to Rainer, in 1897): these form the substance of poems ...”

“... relatively cosy time he had been having in Vienna. If Leonore could be said to spring from that self which continually searches for the ideal in the face of fear, Fidelio, by contrast, represents Beethoven’s more settled, static response to tyranny and injustice, freedom and self-sacrifice.’ Leonore’s ...”

“... too deliberately calculated, with an unconcealed but obscure polemic intention; it is decidedly self-possessed.’ Something of the poems’ self-possession would have come from the man who wrote them. ‘Polemic intention’, too, perhaps – for Oppen was soon in the thick of Depression politics and the writing had come ...”

“... that it reminds us, in the face of much contrary temptation, not to underestimate Amis’s knowing self-awareness about himself and his writing. Or, putting it more briefly (as he did in recording, for Larkin’s delight, his response to an unimpressive poem by John Wain): ‘Could of told you that, shitface.’ Amis was not born into the literary purple, as ...”

“... of this new feminine ideal. Everyone was aiming at it, but Miller at 18 apparently had a cool self-assurance and a strong-willed, unforced recklessness, along with a sense of humour, that blended with her great natural beauty to make her instantly magnetic. With no specific ambition, training or calling, her success was certain – but as ...”

“... Let’s say a gallery. Let’s say ill weather. Let’s say you’ve movedfrom L’Arbre de Fluides to La Fenêtre. Let’s say you’re not Marie,not one of the Corps de Dame. Let’s say you’ve been better loved.Let’s say that one of these, for sure, is what you came to see.*Red and black. Heart and hand. Sand and salt. You make a note.The colours a cross-hatch ...”

“... the parents. George Monger: Marriage Customs of the World Had he mastered the thin domain of self-denial, replacing the skin with sleep, an implacable snow of mothering and cold valerian, the house of Spoken Word and Christmas Morn become the castle in a fairy tale where hearts are hung to dry on fatted string, he might have guessed the limits of that ...”

“... But one of the supreme gods, Indra it was, was always horny for Ahalya. He lost self-control. One day, soon as Gautama went for his river wash and prayers at the bank     Indra was like a cloud ready to burst! And burst he did by spilling down to earth as Ahalya’s husband. Exact-same copy. But hornier! Horny as Ahalya and Gautama on ...”

“... to the black behind the shadows,             the hand-shadow being cast by his one self on the dark,             by the single lightbulb behind him the hum, his own knuckles here and the tightly clenched fingers wrapped like a bird-beak around the chalk             gripping something to bring home to the nest ...”

“... not. A voice worn all along its seams, I ought to stop listening. I ought to stop. The mind’s self-deceptions inspire awe. Its mountains. Must I walk there alone, without a guide? I do not know the things I know, they are folded into my routines imperceptibly. I do not see what there is to be seen, the way they tear the skin off an animal and fit it to ...”

“... and ‘consciousness’ are tricky concepts. He appears to have at once a total disregard for the self and a sense of it as an unshakeable core. I could go on. Or I could direct to you to a hilarious, if slightly unkind website, www.kevinwarwick.org.uk, the home of ‘Kevin Warwick Watch’. Among the things it keeps count of are mentions of Mrs Warwick. The ...”

“... old Baths. Uncanny pleasure moved within her like a full-rigged ship As if she entered her naked self Into a silky sea of ships; Great full-masters sailed across her breasts. Her smile in the office meant the tide was full, The draught sufficient, As the great barque in its weathered colours Glides past the window, pennant flying, In its weathered ...”

“... that students from disadvantaged backgrounds have to be more determined, more committed and more self-reliant to do well at A-level than more privileged students.’ This worthiness should be tempered by the fact that still only 60 per cent of students at Bristol are from state schools, and only 11 per cent are from working-class backgrounds, compared to a ...”

“... plunges into chaos: pro-Bush rebels seize power in West; DC in Flames’; ‘Clinton declares self President for life’; ‘Bush executes 253 New Mexico Democrats.’ And once he was in the White House: ‘Bush – “Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over.”’ The opening story in the compendium is ‘Half-naked Kissinger ...”

“... or a single tall one. Please return dishes to main room after using. Try a little subtlety in self-defence; it’ll help, you’ll find out. The boards of the cottage grew apart and we walked out into the sand under the sea. It was time for the sun to exhort the mute apathy of sitters, hangers-on. Ballast of the universal dredging operation. The device ...”