When you're the only pea in the pod, your parents are likely to get you confused with the Hope diamond.

Kingsley Amis was one of a trio of brilliant comic novelists who made English literature sparkle in the twentieth century.

Those who remember Washington's cold war culture in the 1980s will recall the shocked reactions to Reagan's intervention. People interested in foreign policy were astonished when in 1985 he met alone at Geneva - alone, not a single strategic thinker at his elbow! - with the Soviet Communist master Gorbachev.

Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things.

A day spent praising the earth and lamenting man's pollutionist history makes you feel like a superior, sensitive soul.

The lobbies of the new hotels and the Pan American Building exhale a chill as from the unopened Pharaonic tombs... And in their marble labyrinths there is an evil presence that hates warmth and sunlight.

Caution: These verses may be hazardous to your solemnity.