“... own instincts, without thought of the effects in consequential cases, is a dangerous maverick, his self-indulgence promoting confusion. Lord Denning was a judge in the High Court from 1944 to 1948, in the Court of Appeal from 1948 to 1957, in the House of Lords from 1957 to 1962, and returned to preside over the Court of Appeal as Master of the Rolls from 1962 ...”

“... and reacts with a rush of bullying moral anger – three-quarters of which is really obscure self-hatred. Worthen’s exposition is finely done till, by such a slide as I mentioned, it crosses the borderline into biographical speculation. Such experiences were, we can guess, among the painful discoveries which Croydon brought Lawrence, as he endeavoured ...”

“... could you expect anyone in my position to bother with that?’ He even volunteered an apparently self-damning description of the dying moments of the old regime when it was clear that the revolution would succeed. ‘Someone asked me,’ said a broadly-grinning Nicu in his evidence, ‘what we should do. I told him that it was everyone for himself: Pack your ...”

“... the literature of moral philosophy. She links this account in interesting ways to a conception of self-determination and autonomy, and, in a long final chapter, she makes some intriguing suggestions about the implications of her account for democratic theory. Along the way, she has significant discussions of many issues, including an excellent treatment of ...”

“... York Times and the Washington Post are magnificent, if lonely achievements, they are also prone to self-importance and full of acres of leaden prose – the deliberately dull reportage of ethical journalism. In that context someone like Hitchens shines forth like a naughty deed on a grey day. Hitchens appears to best advantage in Prepared for the worst, a ...”

“... induce him to disparage or neglect excellence in composition or performance. Yet a self-protective egotism was also, and necessarily, at work; he condemned what was not useful to him, and admired whatever he wanted or needed wherever he found it. There are more volumes to come – this first instalment ends with Grimes in 1945, the composer ...”

“... the sketches and have not yet reacted against that preference, which is rooted in a belief in self-expression, a love of the ambiguities that arise from an unfinished surface, a taste for spontaneity and a prejudice that cheerfulness is less interesting than a sombre darkness. But even as we go on judging the full-size sketch of Hadleigh Castle to be a ...”

“... result of extremely hard work, not just practising writing but getting writing into contact with a self-understanding that took a long time to achieve. He confessed the relative weakness of his early work, its tendency towards ‘literary’ decorativeness, and often emphasised the sheer technical difficulty of describing what is under your nose. He believed ...”

“... is rendered chic by his gaze ... This was a Hollywood device during the great days of American self-flattery ... not a King but a whole nation was served the visible world on a platter, as if it were perfectly baked and glazed.’ The parallels Hollander draws make you see paintings and movies a little differently – and that little unglazes the eye to a ...”

“... how much of an advantage my family’s love and emotional support gave me – a strength and self-confidence that many of my American classmates lacked.’ In best movie tradition, Gage’s dream of avenging his mother came true. James Stern’s mission, on the other hand, might have been conceived in a Hollywood scriptwriter’s brain. To discover the ...”

“... or at least sexual satisfaction, but was unable to offer him the happiness a lesser man needs for self-realisation.’ It is difficult to escape the feeling that Constanze is punished, not only because she gave no sign of having worshipped her husband, but because she was the recipient of those late letters in which Mozart’s sexual and emotional needs are ...”

“... chief engineer respectively, were men in the Soviet manager mould: proud of their hardwon skills, self-confident, harsh and intolerant. The station was grossly overmanned, as was everything else, in order to sop up surplus labour. The solution was to adopt the common Soviet practice of developing an inner core of personnel who did the work and an outer core ...”

“... something akin to the desk of shame in the North Library where degenerates and potential self-abusers are condemned to sit. We have seen the BL’s future – will it work? No, it won’t. Or, more precisely, if anyone thinks that using BL 2000 will involve no more than walking half a mile north and having access to some fiendishly useful ...”

“... steel sculpture of 1967 and to either side whitish paintings by Robert Ryman and Agnes Martin. No self-respecting museum would present a combination which was so insouciant art-historically, but it does look very good. The second room is Gallery 12 nearby, diagonally traversed by Dan Flavin’s 1968 piece, knee high and fifty-odd feet long, coolly dazzling ...”

“... great old ghost as I read his letters or looked through his photographs. He explored his private self in his fiction rather than his letters. He was careful how he used his time. The files and Greene’s library will be sold by private treaty, and the money will go to help Elisabeth Dennys, Greene’s sister, who dealt with his correspondence for so many ...”