“... world for others to discover. There is, of course, Kindle publishing, which might allow groups of self-elected readers to purchase and read the books that supermarkets don’t sell, but my guess is that it’s not at all what Amazon and Apple have in mind. The electronic reader is exciting, if only because I can carry all my books around without hiring a ...”

“... filth disgusting and cleanliness desirable, is not a comfortable exhibition. The desire to keep self and environment proper goes deep. In the book of the exhibition one reads that primates spend up to 20 per cent of their time at the mutual grooming that creates social bonds, controls parasites and straightens tangles.* Birds preen, cats and dogs lick ...”

“... particular machines; not the exhaustion of a civilisation addicted to petroleum, but its oblivious ...”

“... without even asking what’s to be forgiven. In this moral wilderness the policeman seems as self-indulgent and arbitrary as anyone else. Like the gangsters in Drive he likes the cleaning up more than the cleanliness. I’m not going to describe the way he pins an opponent’s arms and legs to his chair with kebab skewers, or the piercing of eyes which ...”

“... much hope of footprint along this grey and narrowed fringe that thinks that irony’s a cop-out, a self-serving way of giving in. I want a meta-poem, stripped and dull: ‘Scene. Polemic. Memorial.’ 15. Fat Helmie clears his stall. Late morning walkers dodge his spray. It pushes up the blood-stained ice to ruffs of tawny cod intestines. The sound of cups ...”

“... and performance art, masks might be involved, candles were pre-burned to exact heights. But the self-consciousness seems not to have inhibited conversation; they preferred small gatherings to big parties. This was what became the Californian dream, a life of art, relaxed sophistication and dappled sunshine, and it was a vision the Eameses helped to create ...”

“... without once commenting on the situation itself, articulated a good deal of what seemed the slick self-satisfactions at the heart of this piece. She came over as I was planning to leave. She was older than the others I’d met, and her anecdotal gambit put me off at first: ‘I had this very recent awakening or moment of arrival.’ As I feared, it was ...”

“... open a bank account and 3.6 million are inadequately housed or homeless. Depardieu has chosen self-exclusion and he’s endlessly, tiresomely visible. Social exclusion in France is less of a ...”

“... the whole Vatileaks saga, is that the Vatican is seething with conspiracy, faction, infighting, self-interest, venality and back-stabbing. (When do they find time to pray?) The counteraccusations haven’t been slow in coming, including strong hints that the leaks are part of an orchestrated campaign against Bertone. The National Catholic Reporter said of a ...”

“... The socialists are watching their backs, in particular the prime minister, Manuel Valls, a self-confessed ‘Blairiste’, who has hardened his opposition to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. A few months ago he was laying down preconditions for TTIP, but within days of Brexit he seemed to have ruled it out entirely (‘I tell you ...”

“... Browse and Delbanco in the last year of her life was a critical and financial success. But the self-confidence that carried her forward, undistracted by the strong international currents that broke the flow of other careers, seems to have been sustained by attachment to her native place. Juxtapositions are another pleasure of work seen in a provincial ...”

“... tanks are not rolling. The aircraft are not bombing. Children venture out. Inhabitants return from self-imposed exile. And the reaction in Israel? Dancing in the streets? Applause for the prime minister and the minister of defence, who at long last have come to their senses? Not at all. The nation is appalled: where, it asks, is our victorious army? The people ...”

“... heavily inked etchings. Rodin himself approved of these explorations of light, angles and detail. Self-expression in the photography of sculpture can be intrusive. In Rodin’s case it is a collaboration, as tricky but sometimes as successful as the setting of words to music. Edward Steichen got in early with his photograph of Rodin and The Thinker, both in ...”

“... accused the HIPJ of being too tolerant of anti-semitism. He now went undercover as part of a self-appointed effort to monitor anti-semitism on campus. In one posting, for example, he referred to Israel as the ‘AshkeNAZI state’. Incidents of this kind, which are becoming commonplace on American campuses, reflect a wider determination to ...”

“... as a mood. Landscape painting in Russia had become a vehicle for national pride and national self-examination. In an essay in the Royal Academy catalogue Yevgenia Petrova suggests that ‘sacralisation of art is something peculiar perhaps to the Russian mentality,’ and speculates that art of all sorts took the place of the pulpit and debating chamber ...”