“... interested in memory loss per se; she is interested in what it’s like to have one’s sense of self fundamentally change. Before his injury, Toby never had to scrutinise himself. He was effortlessly charming and persuasive. ‘I never thought much about my, my personality before,’ Toby tells Hugo. ‘But when I did, I took it for granted that it was ...”

“... sick with a cough and a temperature. By the end of the week, she has recovered, but we ask her to self-isolate for 14 days.5 March. The UK records its first death from Covid-19. In London, there have been four confirmed cases.7 March. I spend five hours in the middle of the day with the choir I run in Highbury in north London, rehearsing for a concert at the ...”

“... years earlier. Whenever the date appears in his narrative, which is often, Paul becomes trapped in self-pity about the unfair burden it has placed on him. Politically charged birthdays run through Grass’s fiction: Walter Matern in Dog Years, for example, shares his date of birth with Hitler. In fact, Im Krebsgang continues the history told in the ‘Love ...”

“... distaste for emotional display and always had one eye on his ‘cynical’ or commonsensical self-presentation. And this sometimes made things difficult for his admirers. Douglas soaked up their praise as if it meant not very much, got ratty when his work was criticised on technical grounds or found to be insufficiently ‘poetic’, and altogether made ...”

“... and dispassionate in its logic. It was wrong that the Palestinians were not being prepared for self-government. It was wrong that Palestine had not been granted a seat in the United Nations and wrong, too, that it had been debarred from joining the Arab League. The Arab population was already suffering economically and socially from the effects of Jewish ...”

“... unusual degree autobiographical. The Enigma of Arrival may be the most important of his essays in self-understanding, for it says more than the others about the complexity of his attachments to England. Half a Life has some of the now familiar blend of autobiography and fiction, and offers a different view of the early London years. Closer to fact, though no ...”

“... own name, 75 were romans policiers and the other 117 what he called ‘romans durs’ or, in more self-conscious literary fashion, ‘romans-romans’, a proportion more or less respected by the Pléiade selection – an editorial decision presumably motivated not merely by considerations of ‘balance’ but also by the wish to justify Simenon’s claim to ...”

“... His many books are littered with references to Reich’s concepts of ‘character armour’ and ‘self-regulation’. Reich, in turn, saw Neill’s project as a practical test of his ideas, and he sent his own son to Summerhill for a while. He once threatened to give up his research and come and teach at the school, but Neill laughed and declined his ...”

“... scolding’ except private parodic performances among themselves of their father’s anger and self-pity (‘O God, O God, O God, have pity on me and grant me patience’). McGahern found books in the shambolic farmhouse of the Protestant Moroneys, who, in between picking bees out of their beards, gave him freedom to range in their library. His success at ...”

“... life with the supreme excitement of combat readiness, that intensely pleasurable feeling of self-possession that comes from the knowledge that a fight to the death might start at any time, and that one is prepared for it, by mental disposition and acquired skills. The moments of actual combat – uninterrupted hours of combat are a physical ...”

“... we diagnose, at the very least, a stamp-collector. Does one sense limitation, then, however self-imposed and selective? Cautious fact-finding rather than complex truth-seeking? Sight (and a sharp sense of sight at that) rather than insight? ‘1863-1915’ had aroused one’s suspicions, anyhow: what’s wrong with 1919-1979? Why, for that ...”

“... as many of the subjects it covers are of immediate relevance and are suppressed by a kind of self-imposed official secrets act. He omits to describe his journey to Cathay since he doesn’t want the Greeks to know how he got there, which is a disappointment to the novel-reader, though a cunning indication of how historical texts can be limited by ...”

“... wasn’t entirely outrageous: townsmen and even some lords sympathised, if not out of charity then self-interest, given that social discord threatened all order and prosperity. Serfdom was permitted by civil law but was at odds with the consensual social relations that had evolved from ancient usage. Furthermore, Roper writes, as earnest defenders of the ...”

“... happy. Loneliness is one part of this. Their tremendous capacity for language, for perception and self-awareness, is reserved for the internal monologues that make up the books. With their loved ones they lie, withhold and dissemble, rarely risking vulnerability. To establish connection, or resolve conflict, they turn to sex – ‘the easiest lie’. They ...”

“... impulse could create. As late as the 20th century, the Skoptsy sect in Russia was still preaching self-mutilation as the godly response to sexual cravings. Christian authorities in every age have defended their teachings by reference to the Bible. MacCulloch patiently explains the many problems with this, in a fashion that will no doubt leave biblical ...”