“... his ‘impolitic, if not wantonly reprehensible’ actions, says Aitchison, must be laid on his self-sufficiency. ‘The most noble minds and greatest heroes are liable to over-rate their own talents or by being intoxicated with success to commit themselves from inconsideration.’ However, when the Duke pulls himself together, the subaltern is ready with ...”

“... elements in the Army and elsewhere. Although the Army played no direct role in the crisis, the self-invoked threat of an Army coup hung over the political scene. But at all times the ruling classes were sufficiently in control of the transition from dictatorship to democracy to make a coup not only unnecessary but also liable to be destructive of their ...”

“... so enlightening or compassionate a book as it could be, and for two main reasons, both to do with self-imposed limitations. The first, which applies damagingly to most empirical social studies, is the limitation of investigations to working-class people, even when the situations studied are likely to be, in their cultural populations, universal ones. Whether ...”

“... to be more generous: he admits that they are not just ‘sophisticated erotica’, but ‘a highly self-conscious, calculated demonstration of what the art of painting could achieve’, ‘a manifesto for the art of painting’. Had the author been less inhibited by his opposition to extravagant interpretations, he might have elaborated this crucial ...”

“... going. ‘Diary’ is a misnomer for the trite intermittent jottings of a trite, intermittently self-satisfied bureaucrat, which really deal only with the period after the 1959 election. A civil servant to the last. Evans has remained far too discreet for far too long. So his account of articles and interviews long dead now looks as jaded as the ...”

“... I say ‘almost’ because Derrida’s position always has to be guarded against the danger of self-refutation, the danger of discovering that in announcing the defeat of every previous philosophical position he is simply himself advancing one more philosophical position of the very type which he has attempted to disown. Against this possibility Derrida ...”

“... very pleased with themselves. They write in a wrapped-up private language as members of a mutual self-admiration society. They are addressing each other and a cadre of like persons, the total size of which must be extremely small.Some of the essays also display a bogus adolescent scholasticism of the Granny-look-how-clever-I-am sort which serves no purpose ...”

“... the worst sinners in the world. Surely they’d simply fallen over backwards into another kind of self-conceit.’ The fact remains, however, that he had an unusually profound sense of sin, apparently induced and reinforced in childhood: ‘This first expulsion from school must have greatly strengthened my conviction of sin, for my mother’s accusation had ...”

“... speak of the lack of tradition or of manners as having a bad effect on the American novel, but the self-made man is a far richer figure, from the novelist’s point of view, than the man of inherited wealth.’ These theories, while disagreeing about the possibility of the American novel of manners, agree that it has yet to happen. Yet whatever the theories ...”

“... Rousseauist spectacles, to dream of a society of peasant proprietors and the kind of Spartan self-sufficiency that had haunted Rousseau. Which of the two was ‘right’ is a question that everyone is likely to answer in terms of his own political preferences and private principles. We can at least agree that, whatever the theoretical merits of the two ...”

“... religious maniac in The Virgin in the Garden, is shown painfully recovering his balance and self-confidence, and learning to experience the natural world with a Van Goghian intensity and clarity. While he develops both an artist’s vision and a scientist’s capacity to name what he sees (he is studying for A-Level Botany), his elder sister Stephanie ...”

“... him happy? A big yawn. That our society is sick? Another big yawn. That the Beautiful People are self-infatuated bores prepared to bang on interminably provided they get in on the act, whatever the act may be? ‘A son killing his mother,’ one of them says, ‘is Greek Tragedy, but this is worse – much much worse.’ Yes much much worse. As ...”

“... Drugstore’) give a promise that is always kept. A sample from another chapter (‘The Magic of Self-Murder’) conveys the hectic vulgarity of his style: Lupe Velez, the ‘Mexican Spitfire’, was one of Hollywood’s livest wires. She was born Maria Guadeloupe Velez de Villalobos south of the border, educated in a San Antonio convent, and broke into ...”

“... Adolphe’s subjection to Eléonore, and Proust conclude that love was a monstrous illusion and self-deception. Jack’s goodness melted him. ‘He used to answer me when I told him how I loved him “I believe you.” He never asked me for a farthing; he was always honourable and good and affectionate.’ Leeves was obsessed by his looks. ‘It was then ...”

“... countries there is just time.’ It isn’t true, but McGahern shows how these sad myths become self-consolatory. His previous collections have prompted comparisons with Chekhov, and that’s not altogether absurd. But much of the time he seems to be using the data of William Trevor almost as though the setting were Yoknapatawpha county rather than ...”