“... he was some kind of meticulous master, but a master of the obvious, and anyone who is surprised by the ponderousness of his new work, Eyes Wide Shut, must have forgotten what the other films were like. Vincent LoBrutto, from whose biography (Faber, 1998) I’ve borrowed the above quotation, inadvertently sums up a whole career when he says: ‘Stanley ...”

“... many colleges and universities have endowed chairs in Holocaust Studies; hardly a day goes by without a Holocaust-related story appearing in the New York Times. Polls show that many more Americans can identify the Holocaust than Pearl Harbor or the atomic bombing of Japan. Consider the media attention given to Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing ...”

“... genre in the world. In Britain, big business has profited from the cultural changes brought about by the ‘rave revolution’: during the Nineties dance music magazines have gone from being small subscriber-only affairs to paper shop bestsellers; a premier league of DJs have made fortunes; some nightclubs have become brands worth millions of pounds, others ...”

“... iron or leather. Nevertheless, these two great wine-tasters held to what they had said. Time went by, the wine was sold, and when they came to clean out the cask, they found in it a small key hanging to a thong of leather; see now if one who comes of the same stock has not a right to give his opinion in such like cases. ...”

“... in the greatest danger were anti-Fascist Germans and Jews of any political persuasion, followed by assorted individuals who had blotted their copybooks in a manner the Gestapo was sure to ascertain or invent. ‘Human trafficking’ had become the order of the day and remained so, long after the hope of leaving by boat ...”

“... The result of the election is indeed a remarkable one: a Government liked and respected by few and despised by some preserved its already huge majority virtually intact, and it did so with a pitiful proportion of the eligible vote. The deficiencies of the electoral system are now more gross than ever, while a three-party system – in Scotland and Wales a four-party system – and differential turnouts have introduced a randomness and unpredictability which the overall results conceal ...”

“... of literary exile. Among those who made Japan their home, as well as their subject, there are to be found only minor talents, chief among them the Greek-Irish writer Lafcadio Hearn, whose retellings of native ghost stories have made him more famous in Japanese translation than in English. The most interesting writing has been in sketches ...”

“... A scene from a concert: on stage, a young Jewish-American folk singer/ songwriter, accompanied only by his own guitar and the harmonica around his neck, with a forceful, nasal voice and impeccable comic timing, is singing – or half-reciting, half-improvising – a talking blues. The object of his satire is the paranoid and xenophobic response of some of his fellow Americans to the threat posed by a sinister and nebulous enemy from the other side of the world ...”

“... uncertain of money and status), he had written just the one novel, Invisible Man, which managed to be better than any other novel of its time – and it was instantly, miraculously, recognised as such when it appeared in 1952. It made him the first African American to win the National Book Award. Then 39 years old, Ellison shot to a fame that seemed to ...”

“... girl’. The subject of this biography has already been fearlessly minced into fiction by the energetic Philippa Gregory. But there is no sign so far that another inert and vacuous feature film will be clogging up the multiplexes. In reworkings of the Tudor soap opera, Jane Boleyn is more often known as Jane ...”

“... to contribute to national power, social welfare and commercial profit, why shouldn’t scientists be richly rewarded? Why shouldn’t they do science in order to secure such rewards? It was physicists who first experienced a bump in their salaries and, for a few of them, an entrée to the corridors of government and corporate power. And while many scientific ...”

“... the energy of his best poems, and often makes them resemble action paintings, is brought to a halt by the strong stresses on the last three words so that the stretched perception is completed. And there is a heightened exultation in chaos in a much later letter (23 October 1983) to the painter Barrie Cooke, where he describes fishing on Lake Victoria with his ...”

“... tank. Another missile followed, and a second tank went up in flames. In a statement released by Hizbullah to accompany the video of the attack, the organisation claimed that ‘several enemy soldiers were killed and injured.’In the following days, there were more attacks on Hanita, using small arms, anti-tank missiles and rockets. Two Palestinian ...”

“... only in the body, but the proem,    However little both are understoodJust now, – but by and by the Truth will show ’em    Herself in her sublimest attitude:And till she doth, I fain must be contentTo share her Beauty and her Banishment.For a man who mocked the notion of ...”

“... called him the ‘Swedish Simon Legree’. Myrdal also liked baiting Southern sheriffs and mayors by appearing with Bunche in tow, afterwards going on to the best hotel in town while his assistant sought hospitality from whichever Black minister or schoolmaster would put him up. More than once Bunche thought himself lucky to get out alive. A half dozen years ...”