“... 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 ...”

“... A new year​ ! A new you! This is supposed to be the time for self-improvement, which makes me wonder what’s gone wrong for 2015. We’re used to the newspaper supplements’ December/January yadda-yadda of diets and get-fit-quick schemes, to the cultural roundups of the year ahead. The steady increase in all this stuff – the annual binge – is one of the more reliable indicators of the passing of the years, and so it will continue until the demise of print ...”

“... of better, against the money and security Laurie offers. Must we still marry Jo off in 2020? When self-partnering is a thing? When all she wants is to be independent and earn the praise of those she loves? Gerwig slips the noose ingeniously in a way I won’t spoil.I envy girls their literature. There’s no literature about getting old, staying in (or ...”

“... If the protesters in City Hall Park are doing something significant by sitting still, what of the self-absorbed artist, churning out endless images? As elsewhere in her work, Eisenman figures the work of the artist as shameful – a burdensome and embarrassing narcissism. What is society supposed to do with the sheer accumulation of art, most of it bad? A ...”

“... them. The social butterfly was also a very hard worker. Perhaps it was because he put so much into self-promotion and self-presentation that he had such a fine instinct for the way others could look. His identification with beautiful people was profound.Yet all these pictures together make a rather dull show. They are too ...”

“... day on a morning like this and set you in the way of that seascape blown raw, that hillside, that self-same note, the drone still in your ear, though somewhat dimmed, and no way to know what’s next, what sleight of hand those hags might bring to the game, or why it’s you at all, or whether the black and white, the yin and yang, that ever-turning ...”