“... and live happily ever after. The bad end badly, and the virgin end virgin (except that gentlemen may lapse occasionally, for experience or from a willingness to oblige). Pirates and brigands, shipwreck and human sacrifice cannot derail the classical vocabulary and the mellifluous style; true love and Hellenic heroism ignore economics (no bourgeois vulgarity ...”

“... and exponentially expanding one. If one stuffed parrot can tell you something about Flaubert, what may not fifty stuffed parrots do for you? Interpretations can themselves be interpreted; there is always a motive for an interpretation if you know where to look for it. A History of the World in 10½ Chapters is, likewise, inspired not so much by hermeneutic ...”

“... ever done by mistake. The period we are now embarked on is quite possibly terminal. After it, we may expect a deluge – a deluge of nothing. Houses with venerable names and cosmopolitan traditions seem quite unembarrassed about putting out catalogues that are wall-to-wall English-language originals. Chatto – home of Chekhov, Proust and Joseph Roth ...”

“... stars as Michel’s imaginary interlocutor and ideal reader, antagonist and alter ego; his death may have precipitated Michel’s breakdown. But this promising idea is continually restated rather than developed, and has no significance beyond itself. The book created a manner all its own in the articulation of incompatible worlds and styles. The student’s ...”

“... the dinosaurs had to make way for the superior evolutionary accomplishments of mammals. This may explain why even professionals approached their extinction as dilettantes, advancing ideas that had no scientific rigour. Dinosaurs were wiped out by epidemics of slipped discs, cataracts, toothache or parasites; they were felled by hormonal over-activity ...”

“... is right, that it does all hang together, and that if we shake it around for long enough, we may discover the secret of the column. Classical and Renaissance thinkers endorsed the metaphysical theory of the microcosm, as the true principle of order. According to this, the human body and the ideal building both reflect the order of the universe. The body ...”

“... poets, but major critics too – Helen Vendler has accused Walcott of ventriloquism.) His genius may be intermittent and may have taken a long time to emerge – his best work doesn’t begin until 1973, with the publication of his fourth collection, the autobiographical Another Life – but most of his poems are well ...”

“... the narrator’s best friend) and the strong consciousness of the narrative person. These ideas may come from her discussions with Jérôme Lindon, the publisher of Robbe-Grillet, Butor and Claude Simon, from her studies of recent French literature or from her knowing Nathalie Sarraute. She realises that there is some common ground between her writing and ...”

“... though never entirely of their number, was the poet, philosopher, novelist and spiritualist May Sinclair, the inauspicious subject of May Sinclair: A Modern Victorian, a serene, elegant biography by Suzanne Raitt. ‘Inauspicious’ because Sinclair, living in interesting times, contrived to spend most of her days in ...”

“... Simpson’s much put-upon mothers would say – to notice their children; or rather, they may notice but they won’t necessarily notice what it is they’re noticing. ‘Kill,’ whispered Robin, edging past the women into the tiny front garden; ‘Die, megazord,’ and he crushed a snail shell beneath his shoe. Half hidden beneath the windowsill he ...”

“... for a genius to be a genius, he must have a selfless slave between him and the world so that he may select what tidbits he chooses from it and not have his brains swallowed up in chaff. For women this protection is impossible.’ Well, Lenny Bruce had as good a claim to the title of Jewish intellectual as many of those in these pages, and he phrased it just ...”

“... culture eleven thousand years ago. The Clovis tribes were hunters of such efficiency that they may have exterminated the mammoth, the mastodon and the giant sloth, and several dozen other species besides. Mankind evidently had blood on its hands from the first. Mithen takes us to Australia, to wonder at the adaptability of its early inhabitants in the face ...”

“... Are unmarried people shut out from all theatres, concerts, picture-galleries, parks and gardens? May they not walk out on every day of the week? Are they locked up all the summer time, and only let out when an east wind is blowing? Are they forced to live in one particular quarter of the town? Does Mudie refuse their subscriptions? . . . ...”

“... since the same companies can now thrive in post-apartheid South Africa. Liberal communists love May 1968. What an explosion of youthful energy and creativity! How it shattered the bureaucratic order! What an impetus it gave to economic and social life after the political illusions dropped away! Those who were old enough were themselves protesting and ...”

“... up to the window and snout-butts the glass. Nobody screams. I wish somebody would.’ Mitchell may be more interested in producing dreamlike effects than in providing a spur to the plot; Eiji’s hazy fantasy of losing his way in a cinema is an attempt to render the spiralling confusion of dreams: ‘Each flight of stairs I expect to be the last, but it ...”