“... but it also wishes to promote along the way some image of the ideal Briton: he who combines self-reliance with a sense of public service. Of course, in order to prove that your self-reliance is genuinely tough-fibred and that your sense of public service is not just some youthfully liberal flash in the pan, you have ...”

“... awkwardly with the familiar narrative concerns of The Blue Afternoon; it’s an unnecessary and self-conscious writerly affection. Boyd is primarily a storyteller, and has never been shy of letting us know it. In The New Confessions John James Todd speaks confidentially to the reader: ‘Anyway, I digress. Let me tell you something about this enterprise ...”

“... SF fandom: for example, IMHO, meaning ‘in my humble opinion’, and ha ha only serious, which is self-explanatory. True hacker jargon must not be confused with the technobabble employed by suits to impress naive real users. It tends to have the surreal nature: ‘the Moof or dogcow is a semilegendary creature that lurks in the depths of the Macintosh ...”

“... Used to monitoring and catering to the whims of men as the only way to survive, she was rarely self-reflective on paper, so we can only guess what went on in her mind. Sontag presents her as a woman of enthusiastic plasticity, torn from her roots and avidly collecting love and the lifestyles of her lovers as a means of giving herself shape and purpose. The ...”

“... orientation, and so the absence from the media of a range of homosexual representations encourages self-oppressive silence. But dwarfism is a rather different condition, visible to excess, impossible to disavow (the book contains a closet midget, a full-grown actor who plays a child, but dwarfs don’t have that option). It strikes a false note that Cady ...”

“... us, and he is being quite serious, ‘great and gifted’. His mighty ego can easily accommodate self-criticism, which is engaging, sometimes even charming. But its chief merit is its utter contempt for civil servants, businessmen, military officers and almost all Clark’s colleagues, especially those who from time to time get in his way. Discretion is not ...”

“... their radios on throughout the night. Nevertheless, if, for example, a Security Council ambassador self-destructs on Radio 4 or on television something of a fuss ensues. Bosses congratulate you on the interview; friends and colleagues mention that they heard it. Other media outlets carry the story. On the World Service you are broadcasting in a ...”

“... against all immediate evidence that history would eventually transmute defeat into victory? As self-deception – perhaps the necessary self-deception of a commander refusing to be daunted by short-term setbacks? Unlike Haig, Allenby did not damn himself by keeping a diary nor did he attempt to vindicate himself by ...”

“... this kind of thinking, would indeed have taken it for granted as the theoretical foundation of his self-esteem. In a utilitarian democracy he would be able to explain his ‘function’ thus, albeit with shyly downcast eyes. And yet he would also by that date have known that the theory was failing to hold up, or was turning into an impossible ideal. The new ...”

“... outside the charmed circle maintained: that for all his human warmth Fox was an intensely self-centred being. In fact, there are other clues, beginning with his mother’s engaging description of him as a child, entering eagerly and intelligently into any conversation, yet ready to take up a book when his parents were reading, ‘vastly amused’ and ...”

“... are part of them, the bosses, and should be pulled down’). At once defensive yet assured, such self-scrutiny is a disarming feature of many of Bragg’s novels. Characters are constantly seeing themselves at one remove, and are prone to suffering from weird, out-of-body experiences: ‘the eye of his mind would slither from his head and regard what ...”

“... to see, unless it is that unlike most novelists she made her books out of a busy, open, outgoing self: not a brooded, secretive, internal one. The fact remains that I would rather read about them and about their background, in such an excellent biography as this one is, than re-enter today the world of her own novels. Jenny Uglow is an erudite ...”

“... of packaging. Perhaps we need the arts more than ever in times of crisis and recession: better self-expression with a pen than a gun. But it’s the greatest competition of them all, Manchester’s bid to host the Olympic Games in the year 2000, which provides the rationale behind the acceleration of public and private spending on the arts and city ...”

“... from alienation. Trapped in conflicts which are not of his making, the middleman arrives at a dour self-knowledge which is the keynote of the book. Mukherjee’s dislocated exiles learn tenacity with their disillusionment. Nevertheless, they are as likely to show compassion as anger or brutality. The emigrant Indian woman studying in New York in ‘A Wife’s ...”

“... many other big bananas, Tinguely threw a switch and set the heap on course to clanging, twanging self-destruction. All three networks solemnly recorded the event, which for many people inaugurated the period of ‘non-judgmental’ art criticism. Marcel Duchamp, Warhol’s original Pop guru, commented approvingly that there was merit in the movement to ...”