“... what they do remains a development of these relatively primitive manoeuvres. I have paraded this small selection of technical terms so that you can say that you neither want nor need them; if you do feel that, you differ from professional narratologists, who rejoice in the apparatus and the neologisms; they have what Gerald Prince, a senior narratologist ...”

“... owe each other as ‘persons’: a game of unreason that had to be kept out of the public square. Stephen Frosh, an academic and former clinical psychologist at the Tavistock, observes that psychoanalysis ‘accentuates the power of the therapist to such a degree that it appears to validate authoritarianism’.Nowhere do we find more anxiety about ...”

“... she wrote in one post, next to a Union Jack, and ‘Live in London’, beside an emoji of a small house and a very green tree. She liked to imagine that one day she would live in a house like that with her husband, Hassan, and their two daughters. Hassan used to work at the mosque. Later on, when he was spending more time away, Rania would send him ...”

“... them to wait in the house: ‘A taxi will come and take you to Milan.’ After two hours, a small truck arrived and they wedged themselves inside, but they had only gone a few kilometres when the driver and his mate stopped the vehicle and threw all the Kosovars out. Fatmir and his companions walked to Lecce, thinking they might change some money and ...”

“... three issuing banks: the Bank of Scotland, the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Clydesdale Bank. Small countries with big ambitions but few natural resources need ingenious banking systems. The history of the Netherlands, Venice, Florence and Scotland show this – and so does the tragic recent story of Iceland. ‘In the 17th century, when English and ...”

“... you say, it’s a very American thing.Hugely so.You have written amusingly about what a small-time, English contender Larkin seemed to be, by comparison. Some of the same kind of ambition, but so discreetly felt and so discreetly concealed.You remember Lowell trying to cultivate Larkin, sending him a copy of The Dolphin or something? Larkin ...”