“... settle for being remembered for what was said to them as opposed to what they said themselves. David Livingstone went through hell before arriving at Lake Tanganyika in October 1871, but his stories about that journey would never enter the language the way Stanley’s would, when he caught up with him at Ujiji. Fourteen years earlier Livingstone had given ...”

“... the fact they spent most of his tenure in the White House trying to destroy him by fair means or foul, mainly foul. ‘Good ol’ Jesse,’ is all Clinton will say of the poisonous, racist Jesse Helms, who has just called him ‘unfit’ to lead the armed forces and warned him to stay away from North Carolina for his own safety. The newspaper ...”

“... presidency’ of the Vietnam years, all these authors believe the end justified the means. And none has any time for conspiracy theories about Pearl Harbor – 9/11, perhaps, has given new plausibility to the cock-up theory of intelligence operations. The major question for 1942 was whether there was any possibility of a cross-Channel attack on ...”

“... on a war they could not finish, or the recklessness of those who opposed a war they lacked the means to prevent. Blair’s political career has been marked by a determination to avoid all such risks. One of the ironies of Suez, and one of the contrasts it offers with Iraq, is that the risks taken were out of character for many of the leading players. The ...”

“... strangers at all’ – an accurate observation and an evocative one. But then, because privacy means privation, Fisher has to push it a step further: at the Robie House in Chicago, ‘The observer is mainly aware of an inner life that is self-contained and has no need of observers, visitors, or admirers, an inner life that is rich, mysterious, and ...”

“... of a bedside table defaced by cigarette burns. This fantasy has some bearing on the task facing David Sylvester in writing this marvellous book. He has discovered a room behind the wardrobe. In 1912, Magritte, 13 at the time, lost his mother who, after several unsuccessful attempts at suicide, managed to drown herself. According to Magritte’s ...”

“... in the best manner of spy novels; and is very well served by his translator, the veteran David Floyd. This is the fourth volume he has distilled from his experience and he is about to produce a fifth, on the Spetsnaz – against whom Britain’s expensive ‘Brave Defender’ exercise was directed earlier this year. Having completed his five-year GRU ...”

“... a gripping indictment of British culture in the first half of the 20th century’. If Britain here means England, I fall in reluctantly with the Telegraph’s verdict. Picasso’s was a uniquely difficult achievement to respond to, and many artists, in all parts of the globe, wished he hadn’t been there. There is a famous story of Lee Krasner hearing a book ...”

“... world, a shift that began around 1990.* But the expansion of higher education over the same period means that these are also – for the time being – parties of the young. In any case, it is a bold move on the part of reactionary commentators to interpret data showing a correlation between education and left liberalism as an indictment of universities and ...”

“... and political platform for Labour, has been elaborated with the help of Tony Blair’s adviser, David Miliband, and sees Blair’s election as leader as an epochal event, finally settling Labour’s commitment to social democracy. All of which sounds very much as if Hutton hopes to become a key adviser in a future Blair administration, though the Tories may ...”

“... inhabitants of Skye, confronted with a bill for costs connected with the toll bridge, ‘have no means of discovering whether or not the costs are fairly incurred. Indeed, as Miller Civil Engineering won’t tell them, they are unable to discover how much nearer they are to paying off the bridge than they were when it opened.’ As for the current obsession ...”

“... would have no bite or relevance today. ‘Realism’ itself has become farcical, a mere means of proclaiming the nature of a text. In run-of-the-mill novels the dense domestic scene has degenerated into empty propaganda for this or that way of life – the last resort of the artist without a true subject. In Australia, realism – what Patrick ...”

“... I never heard of such a thing before,’ and received the reply: ‘Haven’t you? Oh, it is by no means uncommon.’ Barrett Browning noted, also, that ‘Miss Cushman has an unimpeachable character.’ Cushman not only had a public partnership with Hays and, after her, with the sculptor Emma Stebbins, but a long secret affair with a young woman who married ...”

“... been made clear, still less where the money will come from to pay for the £7 billion in tax cuts David Cameron airily promised in his speech to the Conservative Party Conference last October. When such pledges are discussed in the media, it is usually in terms of whether they are funded or unfunded – whether the numbers ‘add up’. Osborne’s Autumn ...”

“... Hope (2000) preceded her next big one, Behindlings (2002); Clear (2004), a furious defence of David Blaine’s 44-day exhibition of hunger artistry at Tower Bridge, interrupted the composition of Darkmans (2007); and Burley Cross Postbox Theft was conceived and delivered during the writing of The Yips, out soon, which seems likely to continue the ...”