“... at last!” said Alice in a tone of delight, which changed into alarm in another moment.’ She may well be privy to a secret Carroll confided to his diary in 1855: ‘There is, I verily believe, a sensation of pain in the realisation of our highest pleasures, knowing that now they must soon be over; we had rather prolong anticipation by postponing ...”

“... but the person you are writing to, but which yet you do not want to be destroyed, but perhaps hope may be preserved for complete strangers to read, is ineradicable. We want to confess ourselves in writing to a few friends, and we do not always want to feel that no one but those friends will ever read what we have written.Desire for privacy, hope for ...”

“... and this has required them to emphasise the uniqueness of its misdoings. Even so, history may supply some useful parallels.The shock of the pandemic has exposed some uncomfortable truths about the modern British state: its vast emergency powers, but also its unpreparedness for the unexpected, its scope for inefficiency under lax leadership, and its ...”

“... do so, under the pressure of events, after four students were shot dead at Kent State in Ohio on 4 May 1970. She would appear anywhere she was asked, no matter how small; she stuffed envelopes, manned phone banks, moved to grey Detroit when that was what it took to get the 1971 ‘Winter Soldier’ hearings off the ground, in which a procession of veterans ...”

“... in the Kingdom of Savoy in 1851 was ensured by the votes of the Turin Jewish community. This may help to explain the rapid emergence of Jews on the Western and Central European public scene. So far as I am aware, they hardly appear in the French Revolution or among its European sympathisers, except, as one might expect, in the bourgeois milieu of the ...”

“... From within a few weeks of its opening in May 1956, it’s been accepted that John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger ushered in a theatrical revolution. Launching both the Angry Young Man and kitchen-sink drama, the play is held to have had a devastating and irreversible impact on a postwar theatre scene dominated by winsome drawing-room comedies and witless country-house whodunnits ...”

“... citizens then, or silver surfers. If you had a bus pass or a pension, you were old. Younger people may not now hear the echo of ‘old age’ when the pension is mentioned, and I’ve noticed sales assistants flinching when I announce I have an ‘old person’s’ rather than a ‘senior citizen’s’ railcard. The state retirement age is going to change in ...”

“... when in reality he was just a biddable grafter like the rest. Is it possible that such critiques may rest on not having actually read much of Burke? Certainly Berlin, in his generous way, conceded in a correspondence with O’Brien that ‘I really should not argue with you about Burke. I know virtually nothing about him except what most people know – the ...”

“... associated with aquatic animals come with a chill.) ‘To the extent that culture and language may actually affect perception, thought and cognition,’ Horacio Fabrega and Stephen Tyma wrote in 1976, ‘then to that extent they may also affect the actual experience of pain.’ In the West, when the humoral theory of ...”

“... at around Libor (that is, after all, what Libor means); if you are particularly well regarded, it may be possible to borrow at a rate a tiny bit lower than Libor. So you could borrow at Libor or below, buy a tranche that seemed safer than safe, and from it earn a slender spread over Libor. It looked like free money. It was especially tempting to traders whose ...”

“... asking a question, or giving an order, or making a correction overlooked in recent conversation, may do so, and the charge is twopence halfpenny.’ The directors of the London Telephone Company were hoping to provide a similar service. The term ‘kiosk’ drew at once on a faint association with the Turkish pavilion or summerhouse, and more palpably on the ...”

“... properties to the government. What’s more, no information regarding property titles may be disclosed, so claimants can’t even begin to avail themselves of the nominal restoration of 1986. Such seemingly technical administrative measures have sufficed to prevent the opening of any new church (Armenian or otherwise), synagogue or non-Muslim ...”

“... on Cheney’s either. The Sharon analogy speaks powerfully against Klein’s analysis. Free trade may be ‘an imperial project’, as she argues, but this does not mean that all imperial projects are primarily concerned with ‘seizing new markets directly for Western multinationals on the battlefields of pre-emptive wars’. Other goals, such as destroying ...”

“... broached brandy bottle is characteristic of Hughes’s practical canniness. Two months later (22 May 1956) he is telling Olwyn:I have met a first-rate American poetess. She really is good. Certainly one of the best female poets I ever read, and a damn sight better than the run of good male. Her main enthusiasm at present is me, and she thinks my verses are ...”

“... letter to an MP, ‘I cannot say free, but rather, as one brought over in a Coffin, out of which I may not peep, until the protection of this Parliament unlock it, and say, Arise Freeman and walk.’ This petitioner and his desperate associates were not confident that they would be vindicated in their appeals, even though they had one trump card up their ...”