“... 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 ...”

“... Kosovo doesn’t have full autonomy and remains highly dependent on Washington. The left-leaning Self-Determination Movement, which has governed Kosovo since 2021 after emerging from its own protest movement, deleted pro-Palestine Facebook posts and articles on its website after taking power, presumably to avoid offending Washington.Kosovars have been paying ...”

“... the narrator’s phone breaks when he drops it in the sink. Like Adam Gordon, he’s a self-conscious and neurotic poet. This time he is 45 and unnamed, from Omaha rather than Topeka, Midwestern cities being interchangeable for the general reader. He’s married and father to a daughter called Eva (‘I call her Eva in this book’). He has gone to ...”

“... puts on external behaviour. Genuine as an individual’s motives and interests may be, his outward self may grow into something far apart from his other or ‘own’ self, playing a part that he has to make an increasing effort to live up to. While strength and faith hold out it keeps him going, but at the peril of an ...”

“... ha ha – for he was certainly an opera buff, even if his expertise may in part have rested on a self-confessed preference for ‘fleshy women’ over skinny ballet dancers. When the 24-year-old Callas appeared on the Verona scene in 1947, his friends described her as ‘a sack of potatoes’. Meneghini was then a dashing bachelor of 52 who had made a lot of ...”

“... who falls in love with her. They move into a flat in Earl’s Court, and, through indifference or self-destructiveness, she serves him a meal containing pork. Without the very careful setting – that wasteland between the A4 and the A30 – the story would lose much of its impact. The most terrible image is not one of physical violation, but of the evidence ...”