“... Press. During my visit I am informed that this first-ever biography of Kadar was inspired by Robert Maxwell during a visit to Budapest. People talk about Mr Kadar with an affection that surprises me. ‘He says in public what he says in private,’ says an editor I meet at a party, who considers that as rare a trait among politicians as I do. On the day ...”

“... Before that, his pleasure in the beauty of nature darkens when he remembers how other poets, young and strong, were reduced to wretchedness while still in their prime: I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy, The sleepless soul that perished in his pride; Of Him who walked in glory and in joy Following his plough, along the mountain-side ...”

“... in the first place. It is one of the few questions not addressed by Barker’s acolyte and devotee Robert Fraser in this over-long, over-respectful first biography. Fraser starts from the premise that Barker is self-evidently a major writer: ‘George Barker was a poet of outstanding gifts, an enchanter of souls, a verbal magician with a pot of gold beneath ...”

“... feeling pessimistic about the outlook for the case. Even the fact that during her early years the young woman in question was becoming fluent in three languages besides her own, and reading assiduously and learning to write letters in an exquisite italic hand, scarcely counterbalances the accumulation of woes, or suggests that the sufferer might go on to ...”

“... her holy presence, not to listen to the once volatile, trance-inducing music. Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe in 1974 Smith (née Smith), who turns seventy this year, has had just one hit single (‘Because the Night’ in 1978, co-written with Bruce Springsteen) in forty years, and the only one of her 11 albums with an unassailable reputation is ...”

“... Ian Hamilton came to biography late and triumphantly with his life of the dead but still warm Robert Lowell. Riding high, he went on to attempt an unauthorised life of the aged but very much alive J.D. Salinger and was comprehensively outfoxed by the second most reclusive man in American letters. Hamilton wrote up his experience as a rueful memoir, In ...”

“... site. Performers included Miley Cyrus and Jay-Z. A few wrinkly legends, including the Zombies and Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin famously turned down the offer to play fifty years ago) were also billed, alongside veterans from the founding festival: Santana, David Crosby, Country Joe McDonald, the remains of the Grateful Dead, Canned Heat and others. But ...”

“... on there’ – she pointed to the bedroom television; it was on with no sound – ‘about a young couple who spent a fortune on a bed and breakfast and it was all just ants. The sink was all ants and under the bed. You don’t want to go all the way to Spain for nothing but ants. You might as well just stop here if all you want is ants. The poor ...”

“... She went to high-society schools, where she read Kipling to her boyfriends. She married a young Air Force officer, and became, in her twenties, an important personality in Washington society. Her main male friend outside her collapsing marriage was the Ambassador in Washington of the new Fascist regime in Italy, Prince Gelasio Caetani, an attractive ...”

“... during the newsreel of Castro’s latest speech. And it was clear that whereas, in 1968, the young had been the most politicised sector of the population, in 1989 no one under thirty-five, except the out-and-out careerists, would spout the official orthodoxies. The most revealing insights came when I answered questions about British politics, explaining ...”

“... Robert Kolker​ didn’t find the Galvins: they found him. They wanted him – journalist, friend of a friend – to write a book about their family because they ‘believed their story had something that could be of comfort to other people who are suffering’. I can’t quite work out why. If your child starts hearing voices and seeing things that aren’t there, or believes they’re dead, or you’re dead, replaced by an impostor, and nothing can persuade them otherwise, the book you want is Elyn Saks’s autobiography, The Centre Cannot Hold: My Journey through Madness (2007 ...”

“... away; the meek shall inherit the earth; tender mercies; clean hands and a pure heart; I have been young and now am old; my cup runneth over; many a time; clean gone; the days of old; I am a worm and no man; his heart’s desire; the heavens declare the glory of god; go down to the sea in ships; at their wits’ end; the valley of the shadow of death; make a ...”

“... In 1979 Robert Penn Warren – novelist, critic, and dean of American poets – returned to his native Todd County, Kentucky, to attend ceremonies in honor of another native son – Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, whose United States citizenship had just been restored, ninety years after his death, by a special act of Congress ...”

“... Robert Grosseteste, scientist, theologian and bishop, is rather like the elephant that was interpreted so differently by the various blind men. Even in his lifetime men had contrasting opinions of him: Matthew Paris, who must have known him well, called him at one time ‘heartless and inhuman’, and at another ‘liberal, urbane, cheerful, affable ...”

“... category that includes a few husbands), proceeding to penitents, martyred matrons (seven young boys among them) and martyred virgins. Like the architecture to which it is wedded, it unfolds, stanza by stanza.Little in the way of physical action is represented, though a notable exception is the penitent actress Pelagia, who raises her arms to remove ...”