“... empire’s intention had always been to lead all its territories and races towards ‘responsible self-government’ and – conceivably – to independence.Such nonsense! It’s still humiliating that anyone accepted that bedtime story. As Ian Patel writes in We’re Here because You Were There, decolonisation ‘was from a British perspective ...”

“... his studies, not least because his uncle had given him some writing to do (there’s a hint of self-justification here, as if he worries that Tacitus will suspect him of cowardice, or – almost as bad – a lack of curiosity). As the Elder Pliny was waiting to embark, he received a message from the wife of a friend who was trapped below the volcano, and ...”

“... rhythmically as the wheels ease into motion. The scene makes a gentle point about the perils of self-absorption with a minimum of fuss. From the start, Tati knew how to understate. François decides to freshen up between rounds by taking advantage of the facilities in the town’s Bureau de Poste. The washroom is an annexe to the main office, where his ...”

“... so long as nobody moved. Movement, clothed or unclothed, was another source of anxiety for the self-appointed guardians of public morals. Particularly troubling were the exotic dancers. ‘The dances of eastern women in the low haunts of Tunis and Rangoon’ were not, a ‘well known professor of dancing’ informed the Daily Chronicle, the sort of thing ...”

“... it’s difficult to tell what that means, except in contrast to Hunter’s muddled careerism and self-destructive hedonism. The portrait of Beau Biden that emerges from this book is that of a man who seems, from a young age, determined to become a more perfect version of his father, i.e. a more perfect politician. ‘My father believed Beau could one day be ...”

“... of the ocean’. Ghosn himself believed – or claimed to believe (he was capable of strategic self-deprecation) – that he had only a fifty-fifty chance of success. In October 1999, he presented his rescue plan in a rousing speech in Tokyo. As Hans Greimel and William Sposato show in Collision Course, Ghosn’s story was a chronicle of triumph and ...”

“... cannon fire during ‘our unhappy retreat from Russia’ – he remarked that ‘noble souls are self-sufficient, while others are frightened and run mad.’ Jonathan Keates, in his insightful biography, frequently refers to this ‘Moscow-courage’ that Stendhal showed at key moments in his life. There were two duels. There was a commendation for courage ...”

“... the years of their relationship, his ego and ideology were buoyed up by Claretta, whose lack of self-doubt, to judge from the written record, was greater even than his. As love affairs go, theirs was very well documented. In addition to 318 letters which Mussolini wrote to her between 1943 and 1945 alone, Claretta left behind a vast correspondence and ...”

“... European gift. ‘Our fascination’ with ‘Oriental civilisations’ stirred Egypt’s political self-awareness ‘for good and for ill’, his book begins. Passive Egypt offered ‘only minor resistance’ to invasion and occupation, he claims, until 1952, when revolution placed its antiquities in Egyptian hands – ‘for better or worse’. This is ...”

“... Teddy Roosevelt wrote, ‘have upset their governments, have denied them the right of self-determination, and have made democracy within their limits not merely unsafe but non-existent.’ Wilson was, he thought, only making the world safe for hypocrisy. But despite Wilson’s readiness to treat the Americas as a privileged sphere for US ...”

“... having her opinions heard, but without the responsibility of an actual job.A private diary is a self-portrait, the speech delivered to the bathroom mirror, which does not always play so well outside. Swire has a Pooterish tendency to record her own best remarks and other people’s comments about her in a way that doesn’t always strike the reader as it ...”

“... Colombians in counterinsurgency techniques. In 1964, after a massive military attack against the self-proclaimed republic of Marquetalia, south of Bogotá, Manuel Marulanda Veléz and other members of the Communist Party escaped into the mountains, where they formed the FARC. Two years later – led by Marulanda, whose nickname was Tirofijo, or ...”

“... published a book ‘on the programme’s significance’ in 2017, Defining the Discographic Self. It even has its own urban myth, in which Brigitte Bardot tells Roy Plomley that she wants ‘a peenis’ for her luxury. Choking on his microphone he eventually realises she means ‘’appiness’. Bardot never appeared on Desert Island Discs – but ...”

“... scenario, finds himself identifying with the idolatrous mob, he also admires Moses because of his self-control. He is an object of emulation for Freud because he does not take quick revenge on the idolators: he suffers their difference. This essay of Freud’s, written in 1913, clearly also refers implicitly to Jung’s defection; though, ironically, in this ...”

“... issued in December 1943 by the newly-formed Reed and Harris publishing house, with an outrageously self-praising blurb comparing the author with Rilke and Kafka. ‘The plain fact is that Mr Harris cannot write,’ A.D. Hope observed, before going on to charge the young firebrand with plagiarism: ‘We have a Zombie, a composite corpse, assembled from the ...”