It's subjunctive history. You know, the subjunctive? The mood used when something may or may not have happened. When it is imagined.

[B]riefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.

If, for instance, we'd made the film after the show had been to Broadway, it would have been exactly the same film but we would have been assured that they would have understood it. We didn't have to do any alterations for Broadway. I was supposed to go a fortnight before it opened to alter anything that was necessary and there was nothing really.

Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never.

Why is it always the "intelligent" people who are socialists?

Above literature?' said the Queen. 'Who is above literature? You might as well say one was above humanity.

If I am doing nothing, I like to be doing nothing to some purpose. That is what leisure means.