“... in his London flat. For nearly three months the newlyweds had to sleep separately, one in the hall, the other in a pantry; Russell, when he was in town, occupied the one bedroom. Eliot assured the supposedly anxious Russell that he should have no hesitation about remaining in the flat alone with Vivienne on the increasingly frequent occasions when Eliot ...”

“... and the peek-a-boo portrait of himself! How cunning of Harvard to market the Arcades as another John Grisham or The Jewel in the Crown.) I do not recommend my reading tactic to others. This is a book for moving about in, lightly and irresponsibly and, above all, fast. Benjamin seems to have dreamed of a final, rapid-fire, cinematic delivery, accelerating to ...”

“... so she did the frame up with some white gloss, which flaked over the years. I used to lie on the hall carpet and look at the picture of the farm for ages; the field was golden enough to run through and get lost in, and the brown daubs of farmhouse were enough to send me into a swoon of God-knows-what. I suppose it was all part of a general childhood ...”

“... except in such recherché musical circles as the coterie around Nadia Boulanger in Paris or by John Cage’s epigoni everywhere. Roldan, also a remarkable conductor, died of a skin cancer in the face in his early thirties. Cruelly deformed, in his last performances he had to climb the podium wearing a silk mask. Caturla, a country judge who used to compose ...”

“... On the other hand, of course, it provides no appropriate emblem of morality either. The second hall of this century has seen many attempts to use language as an-all purpose key to the understanding of human affairs – even at this late date, the ‘linguistic turn’ still retains a blowsy appeal for those who live predominantly by words. Oakeshott’s ...”

“... newspapers; dusty books and papers, with Chinese characters on the back, in the glass case in the hall; a celadon lamp, yellow rug, small dark teapot; blue saddle-cloths my mother used to veil her television set; framed paintings of black-hatted sages, silk scrolls of ladies under parasols, a horse rolling on its back by a stream. As a resolutely philistine ...”

“... and reads like a Fifties novel of provincial life, though not one written by him so much as by John Wain or Keith Waterhouse. Indeed Ruth sounds (or Larkin makes her sound) like Billy Liar’s unsatisfactory girlfriend, whose snog-inhibiting Jaffa Billy hurls to the other end of the cemetery. Having laid out a grand total of 15s. 7d. on an evening with ...”

“... another group crossed a police cordon. Ten people were arrested; a few were elderly, including John Lynes, a legendary arrestable in his nineties. Behind the police cordon, where most demonstrators remained, four or five people in flowing red shifts appeared, walking at a painfully slow pace along the tarmac, gesturing mysteriously ahead of them, stopping ...”

“... Six Counties.’ Or: ‘It is of no importance at all that the Tricolour should fly from the City Hall in Belfast instead of the Union Jack if Belfast workers are to find it as hard to live and support their families as before. Such freedom is merely an illusion and such nationalism a farce and a danger.’ Stuart told Fisk that he had refused to make ...”

“... I see his loving gaze falling on the objects in it: a conch shell on a side table, a painting by John Piper (a wedding gift). Home is never a neutral place, it is a very specific context, an animated expression of the presence it contains. Why can’t it be loved?‘You can’t love an inanimate object.’ I don’t know where he got the sentence from. My ...”

“... a movie camera was pointed their way. Peter gave me a handful of oddments before I left, in a John Lewis bag with white and green stripes, folded over and taped down. There were some photos, he said, and some papers he thought I’d find interesting. He used Maureen’s old formula: ‘The photos,’ he said, ‘have what I call sentimental value.’ I ...”

“... out of my bedroom and installed myself at the top of the stairs, which looked straight down to the hall. I could count on my mother’s absence, so there was no risk of reprimand. My father opened the front door, there was a quick wheel of sunlight, and my aunt entered. I remember nothing much about her except that she was slim and dark-haired, with darkish ...”