As Hitler himself later enunciated, it matters not how idiotic the creed, what matters is the firmness with which it is enunciated.

It is hard to think of anything which more tragically and clearly exemplifies the phenomenon of good political intentions achieving the precise opposite of their aim.

I had lost faith in biography.

Nearly all monster stories depend for their success on Jack killing the Giant, Beowulf or St. George slaying the Dragon, Harry Potter triumphing over the basilisk. That is their inner grammar, and the whole shape of the story leads towards it.

Brain power improves by brain use, just as our bodily strength grows with exercise. And there is no doubt that a large proportion of the female population, from school days to late middle age, now have very complicated lives indeed.

Anti-Semitism is extremely common.

It is remarkable how easily children and grown-ups adapt to living in a dictatorship organised by lunatics.