“... was especially crucial to the natural experimentalism of the American arts.’ Pound’s poetry may be ‘flawed and idiosyncratic’, but ‘he knew all the time that he was fighting for a new poetry and a new interpretation of all the literature and culture of the past.’ Williams ‘believed in the power of distinctive American speech to give writing a ...”

“... these dismal circumstances, it seems prudent to consider the long-term or structural changes which may explain the present conjuncture. One such change is the increase in employment in low-productivity services, particularly those paid for by public expenditure. Another is the increase in resources spent on protecting the physical environment. The economics of ...”

“... of which many islands of solidarity have their place. One is bound to conclude that these islands may make people happy, but are not likely to stimulate them into industrial achievement. The obsession with class is the very opposite of an obsession with money, or with promotion. It is the obsession of a society which has never fully entered the modern ...”

“... have approved of Banville’s refusal to be reductive. Commonplace facts – Edward’s cancer – may have the last word. But inseparable from that matter-of-factness is the celebration of humble things and circumstances that are outside (but not excluded from) the human acts of perception, comprehension and symbolisation. The narrator writes of Edward: ‘I ...”

“... point of view.’ This Laodicean stance characterised Nick Jenkins from the beginning; and it may have been a convenient perspective for the narrator of such a long and variegated sequence of novels. It also reinforces Powell’s claim that ‘envy, hatred and malice ... are almost always disadvantageous’ when writing novels. Yet like many comic ...”

“... are extended, the state needs to know much more of such matters than it has heretofore. But this may be in conflict with the secrecy traditionally said to be essential to the market system. Multinationals pose the challenge of surveillance on a global scale. Accountants, if invited, can bring a form of rationality into the business system – but only up to ...”

“... like Warhol featured subjects wholly alien to the proper figures of official history. But Hamilton may have exceeded both his peers in this regard. For example, when I think of ‘swinging London’ in the 1960s, I see his Swingeing London 67, and when I think of the state violence visited on the student movement in the US, I see his Kent State (1970), a ...”

“... I can’t say that I’ve ever had a strong opinion – or any opinion – about Sean Penn. I may have watched a film he was in, and I booked but didn’t get as far as the cinema to see The Tree of Life. In future, I’ll be hanging on his every word. He finds Britain ‘colonialist, ludicrous and archaic’ for hanging on to the Malvinas, and refusing to try and come to an agreement with Argentina ...”

“... Credit Action, the average British household is £8000 in debt, not including mortgages. The banks may lose out when a borrower goes bust, but they benefit to the tune of £173 million a day in interest payments on various kinds of personal loan. The burden is unevenly spread. In a speech on 15 March Ben Broadbent, an external member of the Bank of England’s ...”

“... Stephen Dedalus travel by public transport on his way from the school in Dalkey?) Censuses may not give you the heart and soul of the country, that’s literature’s job, but they tell you the circumstances of the population on a given day, which might also be literature’s job, if you stick with Joyce. The census coming round is also cause for ...”

“... Monday’, he tells me confidentially. ‘I’m going to the fucking races.’ Of course he is. I may be there myself. Diality The shock of remembering, having forgotten for a second, that this isn’t a cure, but a kind of false health, like drug addiction. It performs the trick of taking off the water which builds up in your system, bloating your ...”

“... bees are ‘frozen to the crocuses on the first day of spring’. ‘Seasonal affective disorders may be biochemical in part’ – the human organism has a raw susceptibility to changes in pressure – ‘but they are also cognitive.’ When a low front settles in, hospital admissions rise. Schizophrenia and phantom limb pain among the disabled are some of ...”

“... portraits, some of the finest of which are included in the National Gallery exhibition (until 19 May), including the very finest of all, Francesco Maria II della Rovere from the Uffizi. Self-portrait, c.1595-1600. According to his early biographers he was forced to leave Rome because of ill health, which some attributed to the results of attempted ...”

“... When Plamen Oresharski, of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, was elected to replace Borisov in May, he quickly squandered whatever trust the electorate might have put in him by appointing Delyan Peevski, a 32-year-old media magnate, as head of the State Agency for National Security. Peevski, according to the New York Times, ‘helps run his mother’s ...”

“... leaders has come out of it well (the less said about Clegg the better). Yet the inadvertent result may be as good as could be hoped for in a miserable situation. Putin has shown his ruthless adeptness. The democracies have shown their inconsistency, which is nonetheless a form of flexibility. It is not edifying, but it can be ...”