“... here,’ my father said. ‘You should study the texts. You should know our history. Later you may do as you wish. Even if you reject everything, it’s always better to know what it is that one is rejecting.’ Sensible enough advice, but regarded by me at the time as hypocritical and a betrayal. How often had I heard talk of superstitious idiots, often ...”

“... is a creation of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, which passed into law in May. Ahmed will work out of the Office for Students and have the power of ‘monitoring and enforcing’ regulations that impose on universities and student unions a new duty to ‘secure freedom of speech within the law’ for academics, students, staff and ...”

“... short of this last reservation, but the Sustainable Development Commission insists that markets may look very different in future and we shouldn’t assume that our strong ‘financial and service sectors’ will enable us to access food from around the world indefinitely. Better to arrest the decline of British farming: the carnival of food awareness in ...”

“... is imperceptible, and those who sacrifice themselves in the interest of imperceptible improvements may not even receive the praise normally due selfless behaviour. The real-world example Olson gave was farmers in the American grain market. If a selfless farmer, worried about the suffering of his colleagues because of depressed prices, decided to lower his own ...”

“... nourishes their dread. So do politicians in Belgrade who vow never to let go of Kosovo. They may not entirely mean what they say – in the short term it plays well – but Albanians tend to take them at their word, even if a Serbian realist with his country’s interests at heart might wish to abandon Kosovo, on the grounds of its economic performance ...”

“... as a minority or adversary taste, no longer seems defensible today … The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocuous ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Even Nazi art ...”

“... retrospectively alter the GDP estimate. The number goes on changing for months, indeed years. It may well be that the position is worse than it looks. It may be that it’s better: unemployment fell by 7000 in December, beating expectations, so perhaps the economy is in better nick than 0.1 per cent growth suggests. On the ...”

“... be at stake. Acknowledging, in an interview with the Washington Post, the possibility that trials may be switched to military commissions, the attorney general attempted to rationalise the position: ‘At the end of the day, wherever this case is tried, in whatever forum, what we have to ensure is that it’s done as transparently as possible and with ...”

“... reputation rather than the book certainly tends to protect authors, if only in the short term, and may in fact benefit St Aubyn in the case of Lost for Words. Satire is supposed to bite the hand that feeds it, but for a novelist (particularly one who hasn’t been short of critical praise) to savage the world of reviewers can seem a bite too far. One character ...”

“... their annual returns if this expenditure exceeds £2000 … Introduce a power whereby a Minister may … [in the] public sector … restrict facility time [union activity during working hours] … Reform the role of the certification officer … [by giving them] investigatory and enforcement powers; the power to impose financial penalties … [and] require ...”

“... study of linguistics, and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Milton Friedman in economics, though Keynes may last longer. This doesn’t mean that contemporary US universities aren’t obsessed with ‘theory’, only that the ‘theory’ either comes from outside America, is modelled on economics (which has a strong theory-orientation important for understanding ...”

“... night got a gruesome idea full of cartwheels and dragging feet and puffing and panting which may or may not lead to something.’ It led directly to All That Fall. Hearing Patrick Magee’s voice gives him an ‘exciting idea’ which rapidly expands into Krapp’s Last Tape, a play he’s openly pleased with: ‘It is ...”

“... of pink and black, sunrise yellow and winter frost. Hacksaw sharp and baked-peach luscious. Elvis may not have been much of an actor, but he was surely made to be looked at. Boys wanted to move like him, girls wanted to unwrap him like an expensive Easter chocolate. Odd, glancing hints of femininity in his make-up (and, indeed, his make-up) distinguished him ...”

“... fashion speak ‘British’ means outdoorsy, aristocratic, pink-cheeked and rebellious) and devil-may-care-about-this-dress attitude (not by a British dressmaker, which might have been too much for the foreign advertisers) signified by her just-mussed hair. The Black Opium shot doesn’t attempt nearly so much, and it doesn’t need to; it’s only an ...”

“... wants the mousse kept hot over a pot of boiling water so she can eat it herself. After all, ‘it may be hours till lunchtime.’ Nothing gets in the way of Aroon and her food. ‘If it was a smothering you couldn’t have done it better,’ Rose screams. Rabbit has always sickened Mummie, along with other people’s ...”