But Langer’s mendacity, and Parker’s possible cowardice, is less interesting and salient for our purposes than the question of whether or not Gilchrist, too, was lying: ‘I didn’t hear anything—absolutely nothing.’ These were his words...

You don’t know how shallow you are, or how narcissistic, until you find yourself in danger of acquiring a facial scar.”On the plus side, it’s so situated as potentially to make me look tough and...

You learn almost as much about a thinker from what he reads—in particular, what he likes and what he disdains—as from what he writes himself.

Political centrism ≠ neutrality. Being a centrist doesn’t make you unbiased; it biases you in favour of the centre.

I love our summer game and its letters as much as the next man, and surely no less than my colleagues. I do not, however, repose much faith in its fiction. The short stories are...

If you use the term ‘over-exaggerate,’ you know the definition neither of ‘exaggerate’ nor of ‘over.

Guantánamo Bay’s motto: ‘Safe, humane, legal, transparent detention.’ Four adjectives describing one sick joke.

If we bear in mind the inherent shortcomings of the genre, it may fairly be said of Ms Lewis-Foster that she possesses a rare art: the art of making a bad story plausible. She even...