“... that any substantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace.’ The principle was invoked by George W. Bush in 2003 and by Donald Trump this year; it’s possible to deplore the methods and motivation for the invasion of Iraq and the attack on Iran while agreeing that ...”

“... through Sarah, we hadn’t spoken since the day he agreed to start writing. I rang Caroline on 9 May and repeated that the book could be completed but Julian had to want it to happen. Then Jamie rang. He said Julian hadn’t done much at all and was on ‘radio silence’. Jamie, as often on this project, went from being conciliatory to being outraged, and ...”

“... the airspace of the United States of America, where – where do they go? It’s Alaska.’ She may yet regain her poise. Her populist appeal is still enormous, and it’s far too early to start dancing on her grave, as some commentators have already tried to do. Palin’s campaign-trail mistakes will not calm that deep groundswell of public feeling of ...”

“... in Moscow, was actually a quasi-dissident who subsequently emigrated to Israel. For all I know, he may privately have liked my article, or perhaps even thought it insufficiently anti-Soviet. In any case, it didn’t matter. The article was signed S. Fitzpatrick, and Golant assumed that Fitzpatrick was a man. But the person whom the British Council had sent to ...”

“... were right to conclude that ‘the question of whether van der Lubbe carried out the deed alone may be answered in the affirmative without further consideration.’ He had climbed in through a window after breaking the glass: fingerprints, unidentifiable because of the rough surface, were found on the window-ledge. Once inside, he ran through the ...”

“... Schwartz, Lowell, Berryman and Jarrell probably didn’t need the encouragement. Be that as it may, it was off to the races. In the summer of 1948 Jarrell reviewed The Dispossessed in the Nation, sneering at ‘the slavishly Yeatsish grandiloquence in the early work which at its best resulted in a sort of posed, planetary melodrama, and which at its worst ...”

“... using the word ‘needy’, but as a criticism. I was about the neediest person in the world. She may not have known about real psychology, but needy is its Mont Blanc. It must have been awful. As I was reading pretty much the same books, Doris thought I should have learned from them how to behave. It never occurred to her that she hadn’t had any hands-on ...”

“... anniversaries, please, unless they are our own brothers and sisters celebrating. Schulman may characterise the membership of ACT UP as suffragettes rather than suffragists, but this seems a lot like an assimilationist agenda. Still, if anyone is entitled to a little questionable speculation, after amassing so much compelling factual and human ...”

“... remodelled classrooms to suit ‘child-centred’ learning. Whatever misgivings Westminster may have had (the Conservatives were returned to power in 1970 after six years of Labour government, and Margaret Thatcher became education secretary), there was little it could do, since local authorities were responsible for running schools.Since ...”

“... but she knew its power and the seduction of such a thing. She felt undermined by what Virginia may be said to have represented, just as Virginia felt reduced by Beatrice’s world of facts. Each was a corrective to the other. At one point Virginia actually challenged the Webbs as to what her place would be in a Fabian world: ‘some small office, no ...”

“... entirely, illuminated. In some cases, this partial memory is of an act that, strictly speaking, may not be classed as a criminal offence, but the shame involved isn’t about illegality – it’s about sin. I used to believe that the notion of sin was a throwback, something carried forward from Sundays and feast days, when my mother took me to Mass and we ...”

“... of this misconceived trip was now secure. I have returned to the hotel to write up this diary and may attend some of the conference this afternoon, now that I know I have the means of intellectual escape. WednesdayThe day began with a small but nonetheless piquant disappointment. In the morning, rather than be sucked into any breakfast small talk, I decided ...”

“... Gwoza, Boko Haram’s former capital – a five-hour drive south-east from Maiduguri: Boko Haram may have been in retreat, but there had been no ‘final crushing’ and the roads were still unsafe. I couldn’t do the three-hour drive south to Chibok either: some lecturers from a local university had recently been abducted. But I did make a 14-hour ...”

“... he was rather a good waiter. Dressed in white he was OK.’ Some years later, in France (‘I may have a sadistic streak, I think’), he encouraged Clement to take a ride on a helter-skelter: ‘I was down below watching him go round, roaring with laughter at his fear and anger; he couldn’t get off he was in such a state.’ When Freud was in hospital ...”

“... arcade games in which you can attack the M25 as a virtual reality circuit. UP TO TWO PLAYERS MAY RACE AT ONCE. INSERT COINS. In fact, this sideshow at Pickett’s Lock represents the Best Value future for the motorway: grass it over and let would-be helldrivers take out their aggression on the machines. This pleasing sense of being removed from the ...”