Citations

Stopped in the ticket office at King’s Cross yesterday by a Scotsman who I thought wanted to talk to me about Sophie. Which Sophie? I say. Not Sophie at all. He wants a selfie.

I don’t know what “memes” are or what “skanky” means. Whether it is worth finding out I’m not sure. Are they comfortably ensconced in the language already or are they just lodging there?

Hyperthymesia is a rare medical condition defined as being marked by ‘unusual autobiographical remembering.’

I don’t have much time for Moleskine notebooks and the snobbery of stationery. Quite risky too. Writers who make a fuss about their notebooks are halfway to thinking that their jottings are Literature and headed towards...

The use of voice-overs by actors or comedians from working-class backgrounds not only obfuscates the class origins of those making the programme; it also bolsters the programme’s claims to authenticity.

In many respects, post-reality TV documentary—like reality TV before it—goes out of its way to conceal the class differences between those who are making the programmes and those who feature in them. Like tabloid...

Museums and universities accept the papers of retired statesmen and writers with equal gratitude. Such donations, I’m sure, are transacted across several meetings and much legal negotiation. But surely these organisations must...

For all our scientific efforts, there remains a gap, the Schnitt. The gap between the quantum and the classical, between the living and the non-living, between the mind and the brain.

It seems to me that Hughes wanted to be a writer more than he wanted to write; the difference isn’t always obvious, even to the person doing the wanting, and talent, which you feel ought to be a clue, may be a red herring.

Clean Reader—“the only e-reader that gives you the power to hide swear words”—sells more than a million ebooks from its online book store. Its app allows users to search the text, and “put a non-transparent “highlight””...