“... science began in earnest in the mid-19th century. ‘The great depths of the ocean are entirely unknown to us,’ Jules Verne declared in 1869, in the early pages of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. ‘What passes in those remote depths – what beings live, or can live, twelve or fifteen miles beneath the surface of the waters – what is the ...”

“... blame your brother for having been murdered just because he was driving the streets of Karachi?’ Unknown to the public, there had been a plan to assassinate Musharraf himself in the same period. When the Pearls arrived in Islamabad from their home in Bombay, they probably had little idea of the tension inside the military establishment. In opening the ...”

“... of recording angels. Here lives rash Credulity, reckless Error, groundless Joy. Whispers of unknown provenance make their home here, alongside sudden Sedition, tremulous Fear. Rumour herself hears everything, sees everything that happens in the heavens, in the sea or on the earth; invigilator, sentinel, echo chamber, she misses nothing misses no one as ...”

“... and the collection plates are overflowing into the last few minutes of the time remaining, as unknown guests prowl through the empty bedrooms searching for the stoles, fur hats and winter coats they deposited somewhere earlier in the evening. Christmas I very much enjoyed your latest book I lied having NOT read it. Hurrah! We’re all of us bright as ...”

“... one place for quick reference. Something fresher and more welcome is Thomas Van Nortwick’s The Unknown Odysseus, an elegant and lucid critical study that is also a good introduction to the poem. Acknowledging his debt to Sheila Murnaghan, Van Nortwick remarks on the divide in the Odyssey between the heroic plot of Odysseus’ return, planned and abetted by ...”

“... the Taliban that flourishes behind the back of Hillary Clinton. Still, such revelations are not unknown, and, in many cases, they are not revelations. The difference this time may prove pleasingly McLuhan-like: the Pentagon Papers (and Watergate) relied on the presence of a traditional journalistic source: WikiLeaks’s material is coming in a new ...”

“... understanding, which is finally a form of stupidity, because it does not recognise how much is unknown and will remain unknown. Because the energy of fiction at any time comes from the rejection of abstract thought in favour of impressions concretely conveyed, Lawrence’s beliefs are happily absorbed and consumed in the ...”

“... about this. The same what? We feel is there more. That’s the default. We want to live with the unknown in front of us. Receding, always receding. A vanishing moving over it all. A sleepy vacancy. It’s the sky, yes, but also this thinking. As from the start, again, here I am, a mind alone in the fields. The sheep riding and falling the slants of ...”

“... I see once again how the whip haunts the heads of the dogs Come over here, Bone! and how the great unknown spreads out before us – white, always white, with always a splendid ...”

“... to an           idea. Everything unpreventable and excited like mornings in the unknown future. Who shall repair this now. And how the future           takes shape           too quickly. The permanent is ebbing. Is leaving           nothing in the way of trails, they are blown over, grasses shoot up, life ...”

“... Penny works her audience, and with her claw for grief, she plies her darkened séance. An unknown sound is ground for a gnomic reading. Ghosts arrive on time. Her sister’s upstairs frapping the floor: one tap for ‘no’, twice for ‘yes’, with three slow bumps for some spiritualistic ambiguity. Her son hangs about the back, wanting to beat ...”

“... began with two brothers, whose names were Dan and Angul. But that particular national myth is unknown in England. The point could be drawn out by considering the strange behaviour at rugby internationals (the introduction of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’? All the Protestant Ulstermen standing to attention for ‘The Soldier’s Song’?); or the nature of ...”

“... work) that there is more to it than meets the sceptical eye. Certainly, for readers to whom The Unknown Masterpiece still remains an unknown masterpiece, that lamentable condition should be rectified without delay, if not by way of the original, then with the help of this admirable new translation. Not only is it the ...”

“... their dispute was carried by Western external services radio stations to the USSR. Pipes was not unknown there. In 1966 his book on Russian Marxism so incensed the authorities that two official historians were deputed to write a denunciation: Mister Paips fal’ tsifitsiruyet istoriyu. If the variety and eminence of his critics are a criterion, Professor ...”

“... On Good Friday 1984, I found myself laying a wreath at the Monument to the Unknown Soldier in Baghdad. This was to me extraordinary. I belong to the Church of England and have no wish to take sides in the quarrels of Muslims. Although I have always been attracted to Arabs, I am conscious of my pro-Jewish bias when considering political and military affairs in the Near East or Middle East ...”