“... it had been conceived by Muggeridge, instead of Oscar Wilde. When Professor Hunter finds time to read other philosophers he might discover that such an example of an epigram being borrowed, and muffed in the borrowing, is characteristic of Muggeridge’s essentially second-hand intelligence. But on the whole Professor Hunter does not fail to be ...”

“... Jeffery’s scholarship is beyond reproach. She is one of the few people who have actually read the five volumes of the TRC Report and is probably the only one who has tested it against the evidence uncovered by the various judicial inquiries, special investigations and court cases which had – in far greater detail – covered much of the same ground ...”

“... the first pleasant throb of joy I have had this year,’ Lady Wilde wrote to him. ‘How I long to read the poem. Well, after all we have genius. That is something. Attorneys can’t take that away.’ Willie, who had immediately alerted the Irish press to his brother’s triumph, went over to hear him read his poem at the ...”

“... Hanns Eisler records a meeting between Brecht and Zweig in London. Brecht, who ‘of course never read a line of Zweig’ (one admires the economy of effort), sees him only as a possible source of funds for his theatre; Zweig, no doubt, is interested only in adding the notch of another great man to his metaphorical bedpost. Brecht asks Eisler for a ...”

“... Like many Francophiles, I’ve never read a book about Paris. Not a whole one, all the way through, anyway. Of course, I’ve bought enough of them, of every sort, and in some cases the hope of their being read has extended over several years. For instance, I was almost sure I would tackle the distinguished art critic John Russell’s Paris (1960), ‘with photographs by Brassaï’, but never got past the pictures ...”

“... all he could do was to observe and write. He was a shrewd observer, and this book is a marvellous read. His account of Gladstone’s funeral, or of the Coronation, rivals Horace Walpole’s description of the obsequies of George II. ‘Chamberlain was very dapper indeed, George Curzon looks well again, Ritchie looks the wickedest of the human race ... as if ...”

“... library’s catalogue – it wasn’t a secret – listed six volumes of his diaries, but no one read them. The sentences looked like this: In 1818, a different diary was published: Memoirs Illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn, trumpeted as an eyewitness account of life at the court of Charles II. It was often less than thrilling – ‘21 ...”

“... people to feel that their own life was being expressed in art.’* Beckett was in Paris when he read the essay. He wrote to McGreevy to say that he did ‘not think there is a syllable that needs touching’ in the first 18 pages, and that the rest, ‘though I do not find it quite as self-evident as the beginning, holds together perfectly’. But then he ...”

“... Anderson, another critic complained, Cather’s fiction was ‘harmless stuff that “could be read in schools and women’s clubs”’. Her Flaubertian classicism (and concomitant moral irony) went mostly unrecognised, and despite her huge popularity with general readers – her 1931 novel Shadows on the Rock was the most widely ...”

“... knife); and that they hurtle shutki (jokes) at him which detonate like Molotov cocktails. ‘I read on the Russian internet that you and your novels will soon be forgotten,’ Semyon says. ‘Yes,’ Nina dutifully adds. ‘I read that too.’ But the thing is they look like nice people. They’re attractive. They’re ...”

“... Crossfire gave Ryan his first role as a psychopath, and he went out of his way to get it. He had read the novel The Brick Foxhole by his friend Richard Brooks, and his memories of Camp Pendleton, where he had served as a drill sergeant in 1944 and 1945, brought the character close to home. ‘I know that son of a ...”

“... politely inquired: ‘Do you wish to pass me on the left or on the right?’ The incident, which Richard Boston recounts in his biographical memoir of Lancaster, captures something essential about a man who, as a cartoonist and writer excelled in capturing types, human and architectural, yet himself remained hard to typify. Georgian (Town) Pillar to ...”

“... the city’s deadly riots in 1965 and 1992; the formative years spent in southern California by Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, and the region’s postwar conservative movement, which greatly influenced their presidencies; and last year’s protests over policing and racism, which were among the largest in the US. The rest of the time, you might ...”

“... Lyndon Johnson is alive. James Jones is alive. Jim Morrison and Robert Penn Warren are alive. Richard Nixon is dead; and a Soviet-bloc skier named Ivana Trump – someone overhears Sixties psychic Jeanne Dixon saying – will assign her name to a novel she does not write with the full and worldwide backing of one of America’s largest publishing ...”

“... and sinks into a mire of bloated, yearning commonplaces. Marc Shell, however, has been able to read the braille of another tale beneath the rhetorical surplus, and to discover there the brightness of an individual imagination communicating strongly within given restrictions. His guidance is indispensable. Even Lacan was alert to the female ...”