“... Journals, to ‘a kind of paranoia that only momentarily persuaded my simultaneously lucid sane self that I was watched by shadowy vigilante groups’, Gascoyne later dissociated himself from the doomed Euro-Visionary tradition. In his Journals he wrote: ‘Being still alive and re-installed at last on the safer shore of recovered mental balance, I am ...”

“... then sit up and sing once more. Nor does Mitchell exempt their art. Their lyrics, he says, were self-pitying, their vocal techniques ‘tear-jerking’, their famed hoarseness the product not of soul but of alcoholism. Alcohol, indeed, is a major theme of this book. Obviously a light drinker himself, Mitchell regards alcohol use as a product of the need to ...”

“... representation was adjusted to purpose. Individuals were to be discouraged from bloody-minded, self-centred behaviour by being able to satisfy their needs in different kinds of organisation, each appropriate to its purpose. In France, there was a tradition, which began with St-Simon, of thinking of industrial society – not ‘capitalism’ – as ...”

“... because he wasn’t clubbable: as John Biffen, an admirer, noted sadly, he was ‘devastatingly self-contained’. But, far more, it was the speech that had put him beyond the pale, not only because of the allegations of racism which dogged him for ever after but because the Parliamentary élite does not lightly forgive those who summon up the genie of ...”

“... against which Tito’s Partisans, with British support, were fighting in Yugoslavia. Now, however, self-interest was bringing the country under the increasing influence of an advancing Russia, even while the Comintern, based in Moscow and led by the Bulgarian Georgi Dimitrov, was encouraging Bulgarian Partisans against the Bulgarian Government. In ...”

“... Church was the State. It has always been clear that neutrality in the war made Ireland insular, self-obsessed and uneasy with itself. Kenny is correct when she writes that ‘neutrality in the Second World War was widely, indeed overwhelmingly, supported by the people of Eire, as Catholic Ireland was called before it became a Republic in 1949.’ She goes ...”

“... had a slightly rehearsed feel about it. Repeated telling is clearly not enough, however, as he is self-medicating with large quantities of alcohol and drugs, and wants help in stopping. Before I arrived I was worried that working through an interpreter would be too inhibiting, but my patients tell me they don’t mind. Indeed, they prefer the fact that I am ...”

“... length, and damn the pressure on space. A certain genre of novel, labelled poioumenon – which is self-begetting, writes itself as it goes along, and explores ‘the limit of narrative truth’ – contains, we discover, Tristram Shandy, Sartor Resartus, Vanity Fair, The House of the Seven Gables and Pale Fire, as well as lots of ‘Post-Modern’ writing by ...”

“... who emphasised the private qualities of life and spoke of old values such as equality, fairness, self-help and tranquillity, and the technocrat, the manager, the master of statistics, the prophet of unlimited progress. The lesson of 1981, as the sociologist Bernard Cathlat put it, was that the definition of ‘progress’ had to be revised. Yet within three ...”

“... the constraints of the old public service ethic were virtually non-existent. These get-rich-quick, self-made men from the South-West brought to politics the same instinct for corner-cutting that they had shown in their business careers, and the Administration was quickly acknowledged as the most corrupt since Harding’s. The extraordinary resilience of this ...”

“... he is convinced that the memorial tributes to the recently dead brother are ‘filled’ with ‘self-pity’. That the second son’s feelings for his older sibling included a measure of competitive aggression seems probable enough, though Edel so insistently drives home the point, and so exaggerates its determining force, that one is tempted to discount it ...”

“... 1910 to build up a genuine political partnership with her husband Charles, despite her years of self-education for the purpose. Brushed aside by this progressive Liberal politician, she needed an outlet, and embarked in July 1910 on a life’s work in embroidery, estimating in her diary that ‘it is going to take me 30 years to finish it.’ The ...”

“... admits: ‘A peaceful campus, only marginally concerned with Vietnam, became desperate.’ That self-concerned desperation was imported all over the world, eloquently and efficiently. Such is the nature of ‘student ...”

“... the spectacle of himself believing, and not that he believes ... he remains egocentric, busily self-conscious in defiance and remorse.’ A fellow pilot, who was himself badly burnt, also saw through the pose. ‘In my opinion,’ Geoffrey Page told Hillary, ‘you’re still as bloody conceited as ever.’ Soon after he had been shot down, Hillary’s ...”

“... independence) into imaginary rambles through my own city (founded 50 BC); and indulging a slightly self-conscious relish for the lanes and livery-halls and melancholy churches of London, alongside a faintly supercilious dismay at the trashiness and sprawl of my temporary home. Bradley has written an enthralling introduction, giving a historical overview of the ...”