“... Bunyan uses a corpse as a similar symbol: The body ariseth, as to the nature of it, the self-same nature; but as to the manner of it; how far transcendent is it! There is a poor, dry, wrinkled kernel cast into the ground, and there it lieth, and swelleth, breaketh, and, one would think, perisheth; but behold, it receiveth life, it chitteth, it ...”

“... The ‘golden era’ was quickly tarnished; old habits died hard; hard men refused to die; self-reliance, the Eritrean watchword, mutated into a grotesque form. The brief opening for reconstruction and civility was lost. Argument, bitterness, reprisals, the bristling retreat to the moral high ground, the absolutism of the mountains, where everything ...”

“... is that of individuals.’ Seeking to represent them as types of individual was therefore self-defeating: the best you got was a crude caricature of social diversity on the one hand, and politically isolated individuals on the other. The only apparent alternatives, however, were equally unpalatable. To represent France as 25 or 26 million separate ...”

“... and Williams both trace with regret the arc of movements that started off calling for freedom and self-determination but ended up running neocolonial or authoritarian regimes. Williams’s portrayal of Lumumba and Nkrumah is hagiographic at times, but she also offers an alternative story of national liberation, told from the perspective of ...”

“... could be put into the hands of athletes and their unions. This might well be an improvement on the self-selecting membership of the IOC, but I’m not convinced that these organisations are good representatives of the sporting world or that they have adequate forms of democratic accountability themselves. In any case, the IOC is not going to reform itself out ...”

“... be wanting a tax refund.’ Just as fracking for shale gas should be encouraged to make Britain self-sufficient in energy, he said, British farmers needed to be supported to grow grain, because the country’s grain-importing ports were vulnerable to terrorist attack. It was clear he didn’t take the prospect of an end of farm subsidies very seriously. He ...”

“... suddenly in the direction of the drinks cabinet to obliterate a gin and tonic. I felt oddly self-satisfied to have the pursuit of Margaret Walsh interrupted by the memory – a discovery in effect – of Maureen’s infatuation with Nancy and her passion for Eliza Doolittle. At the same time, it was as though three real people, Maureen, Margaret and ...”

“... didn’t bother him. The circumstances of his childhood and his brother’s loss have made Paul self-absorbed, understandably so perhaps, but he doesn’t see how difficult it must be for Ann bringing up three children on her own. Paul and Anthony’s difficulties with their own mother may lie behind some of this confusion. Paul was boiling with rage about ...”

“... is established, and there is some parallel recognition by Israel of Palestinian rights to national self-determination – and some resolution of the refugees’ plight – Mishal is not going to recognise the Jewish state. And in Mecca he agreed only to ‘respect’ – not ‘abide by’ – earlier agreements with Israel. But he has also indicated that ...”

“... lot of the better-off have been among the most ardent champions of redistribution: narrow economic self-interest does not dictate all views. Does ‘redistribute’ suggest something too indulgent as well as too literal, just giving a chunk of some people’s money to other people? Is the emphasis on ‘income’ significant, as being what individuals ...”

“... upper-case logos of merchant banks, the conspicuous marathon charities, on the tight T-shirts of self-punishing joggers. I interviewed the painter Jock McFadyen, who has been, for many years, a haunter of the towpath, exercising his greyhound, or cycling to his studio beside London Fields. ‘Every time I hear that ting,’ he said, ‘I feel like kicking ...”

“... last century and a half: on the one hand, a morally cognisable event, on the other the weakness, self-interest or unavoidable misfortune of the putative victim. In February 1972, a dam in West Virginia broke, releasing a wave of poisonous water down the narrow valley of Buffalo Creek: 125 people were killed and hundreds had their homes destroyed. Rather than ...”

“... to clean, to cook and to tend. At its worst, it’s a fundraising and travel opportunity for the self-serving. We went to lunch down the road from Grand Bayou, at Ann’s Restaurant and Catering, a collection of trailers by the side of the road in Port Sulphur, with the Reverend Tyronne Edwards of the Zion Travelers Co-operative Center, a dark-skinned man in ...”

“... experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. And while it is true that literature and history contain heroic, romantic, glorious, even triumphant episodes in an exile’s life, these are no more than efforts meant to overcome the ...”

“... case the Social-National Assembly of Ukraine, i.e. the far right, and in Aidar’s case the self-defence units of Maidan); others had been raised by locals who were willing to fight. In early August, the Maidan encampment was still partly intact, but the energy had vanished. One evening, at the edge of what remained of it, I happened across a group of ...”