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“... be making a wry comment on her husband’s profession – the writing of novels could be seen as a self-indulgent and sterile occupation. Developing, if unconsciously, the metaphorical potential of the theme, another character, Jocelyn, says later that what she ‘can’t be doing with are novels about the trials and tribulations of middle-class North London ...”

“... battle with a mass of defeatisms. He was plagued by, as he described it, a ‘dissolution of the self’. Or was it, he would wonder, that he did not have a real self at all? ‘Bovarysme’ was another of the insults he heaped on himself. He had written, intermittently, throughout the 1930s, without succeeding in getting ...”

“... pessimism. A very different mood could also be found in Enlightenment Britain, as austerity and self-denial, those old-fashioned Protestant virtues, succumbed to what Samuel Johnson extolled as the ‘innocent pleasures’ of money-making. Acquisitive ‘passions’ previously condemned as venal and anti-social were revalued as ‘interests’, while ...”

“... trying to convince herself it doesn’t matter that she is not as pretty as Sara Ludlow. But her self-hatred is revealed in a bizarre scene in her bedroom, when she uses her teddy bears to enact a Jerry Springer role-play that culminates in her fantasising her own death. Jessica’s male counterpart is Claude, an ex-coke addict obsessed with weapons, who ...”

“... in general. Why would the Society of Jesus prove more tricky? Well, there is the long history of self-advertisement, which has sometimes seemed to be one of its special characteristics, and the equally long history of hostility and denigration; picking your way between the two is probably not the ideal method of getting hold of the real and substantial ...”

“... stooped, gazing through the viewfinder or bent over the developing tray, even though in his self-portraits he is a paragon of ‘uprightness’, short and muscular, with an obvious liking for the gym. Within a few years of independence he was running a studio in Bobo Dioulasso, 350 km west of the capital Ouagadougou, and building up a remunerative ...”

“... previous books, which are populated by flat, chronically miserable characters who repeat the same self-defeating and often viscerally revolting actions over and over again, and feature endings that seem determined to mock and disappoint.‘A writer needs some direction,’ Vesta tells herself in an extended dialogue with the mystery-writing advice page,some ...”

“... unity at times of crisis for being both apolitical and personal. By drawing to his or her fallible self a lot of the popular enthusiasm that might otherwise be bestowed on charismatic vote-winners, the monarch has helped to prevent the emergence of Caesarist dictatorships of various kinds. During the Second World War, while Hitler projected his power through ...”

“... Sir Peter Moores.To celebrate its twentieth anniversary, Compton Verney has mounted The Reflected Self: Portrait Miniatures, 1540-1850 (until 23 February). Spread across three large rooms, the exhibition tells the story of the portrait miniature in Britain using pieces from the Dumas Egerton Trust and Grantchester Collections as well as loans from many ...”

“... life but preserved a haughty independence which people mistook for humility.’ In an early self-portrait, now held at the National Portrait Gallery, she stands, hand on hip, appraising the viewer. Her gaze is firm and her face, which is interesting and not exactly plain, offers us something like a challenge. John sets her reddish hair against a dark ...”

“... It is an idea that is at the centre of the book. Jack/Toby never feels he has arrived at his true self, his identity is always shifting. Dwight presents him with endless chores, and endless analyses of his faults. Wolff resists the temptation of gaining retribution with his writing, of lapsing into self-pity or ...”

“... show you Hell!’ For Hell, as Shelley said, might be a city Much like London, dressed in cold self-pity Fanning-out in grids from dread of death, Its towers of hate above, its sewers beneath Where flows the dreck of self – the squares, the prisons All at the service of destructive visions. This in my chill mid-morning ...”

“... act ... she does not suffer ... she does nothing.’ Her writing, on the other hand, is painfully self-revealing. Sometimes funny, sometimes angry, she is unfailingly perceptive about the arts of acting and film-making. The description of Pabst’s direction of Pandora’s Box is one of the best things in the book: Alice Roberts came on the set looking chic ...”

“... and of the deflowering of Europe – the latter being a far less engrossing subject to this sexy, self-centred girl. The value of her diary lies in its artlessness. Here is femme moyenne sensuelle, unashamed, with nothing very noble or sensitive to commend her. The Diary of Virginia Woolf it is not. But she preserves for us the street vitality of a certain ...”

“... range from the famous ones concerning the meaning of existence and the search for the true self to the less advertised but equally common one of how to survive the whips and scorns of time. Ernest Cotgrave, a Nottingham lad, begins his career à la Scheherazade, by taming the school bully – ‘Mek … summat … ’appen’ – with highly-coloured ...”