“... images variations on one another? Others are moral. For example, are the drawings of crouching, self-absorbed women voyeuristic intrusions or celebrations of privacy? And some questions, which now turn out to have straightforward answers, arise from conflicting accounts of how Degas lived his last decades. The answers to these, according to ...”

“... Leo can only marvel, in his secretly comfortable way, at what he feels to be the extent of her self-deception. Wright takes for granted that Hartley’s inability to come to terms with his own sexuality ruined his life. But there seems to me no evidence for that at all. Both as artist and as social being Hartley found a way of doing very nicely for ...”

“... as far as possible, that the harsh necessities he imposes on the people are regarded by them as self-inflicted. Above all, the executive, the prince and the statesman must manage the smoke and mirrors of public morality so that the two things the common people are most impressed by – results and appearances – are kept firmly and unscrupulously in ...”

“... and to no one but yourself. That Bradman was a ‘natural’ was never in question; he was a self-made master in an aspect of cricket, batting, whose best-loved movements – the off-drive, the late cut – are far from simply natural. The 1930 tour, when the 22-year-old Bradman had scored with such destructive ease off all the English bowlers, led ...”

“... dirt and deity – all mixed up in that one compound of inspired clay!’ Burns was a ‘self-fashioner’ who used his poems, prefaces and private letters to project an intensely attractive and social personality, which makes it unsurprising that most people were struck by him in much the same way. Verdicts on the career, on the other hand, tend to ...”

“... much as toast, which he pursued and devoured in prodigious quantity. Being an invalid, even if a self-made one, Mr Woodhouse’s interest in food in Emma is specially keen. One of his chief pleasures in life is recommending dishes to his friends, such as lightly boiled eggs, but only as they are done by his own housekeeper. Another of his pleasures is ...”

“... it seems, is expected to respond critically to Delphine’s flights: if she is to some extent a self-portrait of her author it is not an uncritical one. Delphine’s imperfections are, however, high imperfections, like those of her important predecessors, Julie and Clarissa. Delphine can also be seen as a reconsidering of Madame de Lafayette’s La ...”

“... was prepared to think in terms less of reproach than of damage limitation. But British plans (and self-defeating British secrecy) dictated, first, that scarcely anything should start before the ultimatum expired, and secondly, that no airborne invasion from Cyprus be attempted before the seaborne reinforcements had arrived from Malta. The allies thus ...”

“... monstrous is the film’s use of Robert Kennedy’s assassination as a mere item in Garrison’s self-vindication and patched-up private life. It proves he was right about everything, and it regains him (immediately) his wife’s love and respect and sexual favours. Amazing how useful public calamities can be once you get the hang of them. The largest ...”

“... to. Branches were to be independent, but were expected to uphold the principles of democracy, self-reliance and self-sufficiency. Andrews lists the official objectives of the organisation: ‘1) stimulating interest in the agricultural industry 2) developing co-operative industries 3) encouraging home and local ...”

“... his own admission is a liar, a humbug, a hypocrite, a vagabond, a loathsome spotted reptile and a self-confessed chicken strangler. You may choose if you wish to believe the transparent tissue of odious lies which streamed on from his disgusting, reedy, slavering lips. That is entirely a matter for you. We have been forced to listen to the whinings of Mr ...”

“... Immersion in landscape seemed to return Clampitt to that pre-subjective moment of joy before self and object become two things. Consequently, nothing made her happier as a writer than the challenge to make the physical world appear to others as it seemed to her. The tornados of her childhood, for ...”

“... He wanted to write books that would be too angry for most readers, too chilly, exhausting and self-conscious. To do otherwise would produce fiction ‘simply inadequate to the social and technological crises’ he saw developing all around him. Which was a shame, because he also thought that mass readership of his work would lead to ‘better political ...”

“... 1990s, this indisputable record revealed that all previous insider accounts were both wrong and self-serving. Far from being the voice of reason, Bobby Kennedy had been belligerent to an almost hysterical degree, urging not only attacks on the offending missile sites but a full-scale invasion of Cuba – even though, as his own diaries show, he knew that ...”

“... me, to enrol me,’ she thinks. ‘Right up to only sleeping with people he OKs.’ Veronica is self-centred and sometimes foolish, but Condé shows her navigating machismo on all sides: there’s something more going on here than just wilfulness or naivety.Published in 1976, Heremakhonon wasn’t a success. The left attacked it for betraying African ...”