“... From David Hockney’s Lord of Misrule to its repetition on the back of the jacket, this book is a bull shot, like the cocktail at the bar in Langan’s Brasserie. It consists of Langan’s self-portrait, written in the sleepless marches, to which the art critic Brian Sewell has contributed a memoir of friendship which will come as a pleasant surprise to readers more accustomed to his inspired Sowerberry in the columns of the Evening Standard ...”

“... the last election was expressed almost exclusively in terms of menace. Which would the voters be more frightened of – loony Labour’s threat to Britain’s defence and personal prosperity or the hard-faced Conservatives’ dismemberment of health, education and welfare? ‘I wants to make your flesh creep,’ said the fat boy, and that is what the ...”

“... as physical objects, and something to do with the fact that bibliographic crime is not felt to be crime quite in the pound-note-forging, or even Vermeer-forging, sense. Some gentlemanly code of ethics enfolds the activities of Thomas Wise and his fellows. As for purely literary, as opposed to bibliographical forgery, it receives no censure at ...”

“... of his seniors, the condemnation of his critics, and the faint sniggers of academics offstage. David Owen has had his prescription for Britain patronised by Grimond and Powell, dissected by Ken Coates, and treated like a first-year undergraduate’s essay ...”

“... Sackville Street in London in 1942, Nicholas Jenkins’s attention was unequivocally demanded by the hurricane-like imminence of a thickset general, obviously of high rank, wearing enormous horn-rimmed spectacles. He had just burst from a flagged staff-car almost before it had drawn up by the kerb. Now he tore up the ...”

“... previous day on the other side of the park, in the Haus der Deutschen Kunst. Many of the pieces by foreign artists which were not displayed, including paintings by Matisse, Picasso, Braque and van Gogh, were sold on cheaply – either directly or at auction – to overseas dealers in exchange for hard ...”

“... of a winter’s afternoon. This was 25 January 1981, and the launch of the manifesto that came to be known as the Limehouse Declaration. When Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen and I met together that morning, we were clear in our intention: in breaking the mould of contemporary politics, we would create a new ...”

“... No one​ thought that Ethel Rosenberg would be executed. At the time of her trial in 1951, no federal judge had sentenced a woman to death in nearly a hundred years. She hadn’t been accused of murder or of being an accomplice to a murder or of conspiracy to commit a murder. These, it seems, were the only crimes for which the American government might kill a woman ...”

“... Now comes Scott Hicks’s Shine, an equally arty but commercially viable biopic about a man – David Helfgott (played by Geoffrey Rush, Noah Taylor and Alex Rafalowicz) – who is abnormally inarticulate. Helfgott’s very first words are: ‘Kissed them all, I kissed them all, always kissed cats, puss-cats, kissed ...”

“... questions directly, or take on important tasks. Quite the contrary: Coetzee’s career seems to be moving off in the direction of mystification and whimsy. It is disorienting. One of the hallmarks of his writing over the years, one of the most appealing things about it, has been its clarity – alienated, almost mathematical. Thoughts are pursued ...”

“... for months producing a package of proposals either popular enough to win votes or so prosaic as to be dropped without penalty if Parliament runs out of time. On the direct and specific instructions of Number 10, ministers are preparing executive decisions (money to be spent, promises to ...”

“... he wrote and added: ‘I share the general view about paying respect to Unknown Soldiers.’ David had been a soldier himself, or at any rate done National Service, in Hong Kong, and probably had more sympathy for army life than most LRB contributors. Here he is, in a review of George Spater’s Life of Cobbett, brushing aside Hazlitt’s remarks about ...”

“... i.m. David Douglas, 1798-1834 Accompanied by eagles, David Douglas trecked Through forests and rivers in search of seed. Wet or wounded, he remained undaunted: His roots in Scone, his crown outside. The Indians called him ‘grassman’, Watched him paddle his own canoe ...”

“... some more information about your school education, for example, or your family background, may be useful.’ Coetzee, who was 33 and a lecturer in the University of Cape Town’s English department, replied: The information you suggest suggests that I settle for a particular identity I should feel most uneasy in. A few words about my schooling, for ...”

“... as has Scarlett Johansson. Unusual biopics, of course, since they contend that it’s better to be remembered for what you failed to do than for what you did. ‘Zelda did not succeed as a writer because she was brainwashed into believing that she was ill and that her art came out of her illness, not her brilliance, so much so that she really became ...”