“... paraphrasable it was probably up to no good (‘obscurity in a writer,’ he once wrote, ‘may be due not to concentration but to a refusal to speak out’). It was pernicious to be vague, he implied, and disingenuous to be opaque. The reader was entitled to know what the author thought, which meant knowing what his conflicts were. He wanted what he ...”

“... hands, the Review included an outraged rejoinder. It was his alone, and ‘wherever the Author may be, the Papers are wrote with his own Hand, and the Originals may be seen at the Printers.’ Unflaggingly, the Review ran for more than nine years, first weekly, then twice weekly, then three times a week. It covered the ...”

“... of experience’ or ‘The mind is the most powerful thing in the world.’ The Romantics may have invented this all-powerful sense of the aesthetic, but they invented the distrust of it as well. Keats could sound as rapt as anyone about the autonomy and power of the poetic mind (‘The great beauty of Poetry is, that it makes every thing every place ...”

“... of theoretical bids, then the expectant pause just below the low estimate. Well, I thought, I may as well start things off, and clicked on the ‘bid’ button. And waited; and waited. But I was the sole bidder, and the auctioneer was duly grateful to me. I was filled with a prideful exultation: uxoriously, I had completed my wife’s collection.I ...”

“... prepared to put the blame on a particular institution. The ‘onset of the movies’, he argues, may well have proved the ‘most influential’ of all innovations in the ‘process’ of modern warfare. The fact that the enduring tension between martial fantasy and an awareness of damage done is unlikely to be resolved any time soon adds a flavour of ...”

“... Breillat often refers to the shame that young women felt in postwar France. The Second Sex (1949) may have been a bestseller, but feminism had hardly taken hold of the country. Breillat’s father would say she and her sister were ‘dangerous to ourselves’. She read her way through the children’s section of the town library until her mother gave her ...”

“... executed for a crime of which ‘I solemnly declare that I am no more guilty than any of you who may now be hearing me.’ Cautioned by the sheriff, he signed off with the hope that ‘the principles of freedom, of humanity and of justice, will finally triumph over falsehood, tyranny and delusion, and every principle inimical to the interests of the human ...”

“... James Boswell, Betty Rea, Nan Youngman, Clive Branson – are largely forgotten. The first two may be known to aficionados of design and of children’s books and illustration, but the others, the painters and sculptors, had until recently all but disappeared from the canon of 20th-century British art. More traditionalist work from the period has, by ...”

“... to chair the SNC but was kept on a short leash, being re-elected only for three-month terms. By May 2012 he had abandoned his opposition to the militarisation of the anti-Assad movement, but then abruptly decided that his position had become untenable and resigned. On 11 November 2012 a new body to speak for the Syrian opposition abroad was established, the ...”

“... told the story – who can tell? A cockroach in a kitchen is the truth. A cockroach in a story may be lies. The insect was both noble and uncouth. The writer makes a life from ...”

“... Chinese Writing Novels about peasants are generally good (In general the peasantry is good) They may sound rather boring But they are not One of them is entitled ‘The Well’ And set in a remote village Where are many hardships Another is called ‘The Village’ Concerning a peasant and his wife Who have two sons And each son has a wife (If the Chinese ...”

“... from purgatorial distances in places such as this where once in ten years a desert-traveller may catch a scent of it wafted from a passing angel, as I from a sliver of satin in an airmail ...”

“... one born to it will stand at the start of knowledge, and lending a fond ear to the drone, he may have parley with old folks of old affairs. Neil Munro, ‘The Lost Pibroch’ We were talking about the hills when the land fell silent. By that time, the deer were cartoons, soft focus in the rear-view mirror, the hare in our headlamps brotherly to ...”

“... and a long, dirty fingernail pierces a bay. Yes, I like the cut of you, hitchhiker, hijacker, you may case your backpack into my hatchback, let your sleeping-bag roll on the back-seat as the exhaust-pipe opens its flyblown parachute. One by one, the road-signs flicker by and we sleepwalk under the skin of a car, passing the lay-by, the drive-in eatery, the ...”

“... of gallows, And crows with no carrion in sight Caw to each other of better days. The congregation may still be at prayer. Farm folk from fly-specked photos Standing in rows with their heads bowed As if listening to your approaching steps. So slow they are, you must be asking yourself How come we are here one minute And in the very next gone for ever? Try the ...”