“... the Crucible, their battlefield, Nobody needs to go home on a shield. But now on Friday, 21st of May We hear what happens in a proper fight. Eight thousand miles south in San Carlos Bay The invasion has been going on all night. Men on both sides have really died today. The bridgehead’s been wide open since first light. Out in the Sound our gun-line ships ...”

“... I remember even now, seemed deeply involved with the rhythm of my own spirit.’ Be that as it may, Plomer was seasick, although he never admitted it in his own version of the voyage. Van der Post had to cope with jealousy: Plomer and Captain Mori got on famously and the Captain started to translate Turbott Wolfe, which had just caused a great stir (and ...”

“... subtler. They call for the same ingredients but in different proportions. The precise differences may take some years of puzzling work to appreciate; in each case there are many subtle variations according to the character of the actor. Thanks very much. That’s a great help. Nevertheless, Olivier manages, despite a dangerous amount of unchronological free ...”

“... and claiming (or repossessing) new territories for modern fiction. It’s evidently not easy, and may indeed be impossible. A dominant myth alluded to is that of Sisyphus’s sterile labour, and the main plot of Headbirths ostensibly chronicles an ambitious novel-film collaboration which never got off the ground, and of which the present book is the meagre ...”

“... Comparisons, even facetious ones, are invidious, but the fact that in this case they are so absurd may serve as an introduction to reflection on the principles of anthologising. A book of comic verse is ‘legitimate’, as the comic is a necessary category in literature. A book of homosexual verse (now we have one) is not, since homosexuality is not a ...”

“... contract with Little, Brown. And then there are all the lulling schoolroom exchanges:     ‘May I ask any question?’     I was fearful, but I looked back into Her eyes and nodded calmly.     ‘You will not think it is a silly question?’     ‘Never.’     ‘Very well then, ’ She said, ‘Who is this Horus?’     ‘Oh, He ...”

“... second half of the poem ‘bulk is being sought for its own sake’ is hardly a just criticism. It may be that in previous versions of the story Odysseus revealed himself to his wife earlier on: but if he does not in the Odyssey, that is part of the poem’s design. The toils and the wiles of the hero must go on beyond his return home. (Neither did Dante or ...”

“... in the light of the general argument advanced by Margot Heinemann in Puritanism and Theatre, it may be that we should also regard it as the quite natural response of a man less committed than Jonson to the royalist or ‘court’ party. Shakespeare had at least one patron (William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke) with substantial Puritan affiliations. He ...”

“... of Indian philosophy and mysticism to corroborate the importance of national liberation.) ... it may be that I’ve lived through a period of such political and social disintegration that it is hard for me to conceive that some coherent explanation would emerge from such disparate and anarchistic opposing elements. The Armed Forces let Isabel Peron survive ...”

“... On the credit side, Woodforde is modest, affectionate, and wholly without snobbery, and while some may say that in a self-portrait he is bound to be so, it has to be remembered that in a diary stretching across nearly fifty years a great many unflattering lines will usually have crept in to balance any attempt by the writer to present his good side only. And ...”

“... into the administration of Cuban things. Revolutions do not respect luxurious arts, though they may carry them on. Do the Cubans really still produce the 700 vitolas, types of cigar, that they claim to produce? Rollers grow old Marx himself (evidence of Liebknecht, cited by Cabrera) smoked dreadful cigars. Wait and see. Caviar is produced by a fish, it is ...”

“... swayed by the current of sound. The sound is also a blast, a whirlwind; when the concert ends you may well be temporarily deaf. Subtlety would be wasted here. What you hear is what you know; if you don’t know the words of a song, don’t bother trying to make them out. The sound is a physical element in which you move and breathe; even at the far end of the ...”

“... that Edward cannot love ... he cannot respond to my love ... I have prayed that I and my baby may die, but we shall not, though this would free [him]. I am as strong as ever. I pile work on work till my body can scarce move for weariness, but nothing lifts the darkness from my soul. By 1911 the dangerous game that Thomas played with Helen had produced ...”

“... found in a dusty classroom in Witwatersrand University a copy of the now banned Sowetan, dated 29 May 1986. There was a report of a treason trial in the course of which the counsel for the defence cross-questioned a security policeman about the video of a funeral which the police had confiscated. They had also arrested the crew. Mr Bizos: Could it not be ...”

“... from Western civilisation, and made his journey appear more of an exploration of his own self.) We may accept that the details of Phat Diem or Santiago were observable by anyone who happened to be there, but venture to think that only one writer would have selected them and not others present in the scene, and described them in those words in that particular ...”