“... No one recovers from the sadomasochism of their childhood. We may not want to think of the relations between parents and children as power relations: indeed it may sound like a perversion of parenting to do so. And we don’t want to think of parents and children being in any way sexually gratified by their status in relation to each other ...”

“... you did. Your epidemiological duty is to minimise the expected number of life-years lost, which may mean accepting terrible suffering now to alleviate even worse suffering later. When you look at the numbers for Covid-19, the trolley problem becomes appalling, with hundreds of thousands of lives lost either way. ‘I wish I had a faith,’ she said – not ...”

“... such strange concepts as ‘dark energy’, ‘braneworlds’ and ‘wormholes’ – terms people may have heard of or perhaps read about, but still don’t really understand. Brian Greene, a leading expert in string theory, has now followed up his earlier, very successful book, The Elegant Universe, to give lucid and accessible explanations of a wider range ...”

“... getting things right in ways that are not of primary interest a century later. The modern writer may have to find ways of bringing off feats of comparable virtuosity, but they are unlikely to be discovered by close imitation. Attempts to do so may have an undesired outcome: the shadow of the older novel might darken or ...”

“... of the kind he usually visits on his readers. This time there is a ‘foreigner’s dream’ that may be a footnote, a preference or cold winds, a ‘countryman’ who may be a rustic or may be a compatriot of the foreigner who has the dream, and a ‘proper source’ that ...”

“... is going on. First, there is a diligent detailed realism, essential in spite of whatever Pellerin may say. Time, place, action, clothes, food, dialogue and much more are reported – recreated – with impeccable, mildly obsessive care. Second, this approach is frequently, subtly invaded by moments of subjectivity or impressionism: we are seeing not what an ...”

“... sheer amount, the endlessness of cod. The vast cod-grazing grounds off the American Atlantic coast may well have drawn the very first Europeans to the continent: Mark Kurlansky provides evidence that not only Viking explorers but Basque fishermen were there long before Columbus – they kept secret the source of their mysterious supplies of ...”

“... of flux. According to some, the future of international economic co-operation and co-ordination may hang in the balance. It might still be worth asking, despite these uncertainties, whether the crash could have been predicted. Here, those who say yes may be on safer ground. There were plenty of reasons for thinking that ...”

“... tries to explain the function of editorial and visual decision-taking that should intervene – or may happen by default-between the writing of a text and its composition and multiplication as printed pages. The other familiar conversation is of insiders talking together: the obsessive discussions of the visual forms of text matter, of line-lengths and ...”

“... as the first’, and ‘it is easy to confuse illusion with the real thing.’ Some readers may also be wary of his attitude. Democracy, Italian Style is written with the fervour and enthusiasm of a convert. For years, LaPalombara admits, he held much more negative views of Italian politics, views that ‘now strike me as inadequate – and very much in ...”

“... very specific and bizarre form of interaction. Any temporary discomfort that an interview subject may occasion by being ill-mannered, belligerent – or, as in this case, authentically tonto – tends to be cancelled out for the interviewer by the felicitous prospect of ‘good copy’. In fact, behaviour that would be embarrassing or disastrous in any other ...”

“... defined, grammar is a body of statements of fact – a “science”; but a large portion of it may be viewed as consisting of rules for practice, and so forming an “art”.’ Rules, rules. And Latin. As Latin slowly passed out of all but liturgical and classroom existence, it became the model of the rule-bound language. Each noun followed one of five ...”

“... that to disparage the work – leg-pulls have an honoured place in modern art, and to suspect one may be intellectually preferable to a flight into allegory. Like Picasso, Hodgkin has his own technical alphabet and can do exactly as he pleases, as his brush pleases, according to his humour; it is, after all, the biggest of leg-pulls to kid us into believing ...”

“... as in the case of abortion, or to equal treatment in the case of racial segregation. Britain, too, may soon acquire some version of this system, in the form of a Bill of Rights. No one who followed the recent impeachment proceedings can find it easy to associate the US Congress with the concept of dignity. But Waldron has an important argument to make, which ...”

“... and persons, but seeing as good whatever beliefs, actions and persons enter your field of view. It may arise in order to encourage diversity, but it also provides the comforts of conformism by dictating that all should judge alike. It is forbidden to give offence, where offence is understood subjectively, as a violation not of general standards but of personal ...”